SIXTEEN people were arrested for offences including drug dealing, stalking, sexual offences, and domestic abuse in a day-long crackdown across Worcester and South Worcestershire on Tuesday.
The arrests, carried out as part of Operation Forefront, also included multiple thefts, theft of a motor vehicle, fraud, and harassment.
Drugs warrants, teams targeting organised crime and priority suspects, high visibility street patrols and road safety operations all formed part of the day.
Along with the arrests, £700 of drugs including heroin, cannabis, ketamine, and ecstasy were seized and 24 traffic offence reports were issued.
At midnight, an operation to target cargo theft and lorry crime linked to organised crime at Strensham Services at junction 7 of the M5 was conducted by police.
A car suspected of being involved with caravan theft was stopped but no one was arrested.
At dawn, drug raids were executed on Saddlers Walk in Brickfields, Worcester, where one man was arrested for being concerned in the supply of class-A drugs.
Another raid on Canterbury Road, Worcester saw no arrests but two motorbikes suspected of being linked to anti-social behaviour in the area were seized.
Safer Neighbourhood Team officers followed up the raids with reassurance patrols in the local areas concerned.
West Mercia Police’s Operational Policing Unit (OPU) response cars and motorbike teams were out in force on New Road, Worcester and the A4440 around Warndon and St. Peters.
The officers were looking for motorists who were in breach of the ‘Fatal Four’ – speeding or inappropriate speed; distractions, such as mobile phones; driving under the influence of drink or drugs and not wearing a seatbelt.
In the city centre, OPU teams clocked 13 offences – four mobile phone offences, three seatbelt offences, three cars with illegally tinted windows, and one vehicle with a defective tyre.
One driver was for careless driving and another for having no insurance.
Later, on the A4440 Whittington Roundabout to St Peter’s Roundabout, 11 speeding offences were recorded with motorists exceeding the 60mph limit, with the highest recorded seed in the 45 minutes being 85mph.
The offending drivers were given words of advice or traffic offence reports which may result in court appearances for some.
A bike-marking event in Worcester City Centre was also carried out.
