Rat Trap House Nets First Arrests in TUNSTALL

Rat Trap House Nets First Arrests

Three males were arrested by police in Stoke-on-Trent after being found by officers at an address in the Tunstall area being monitored in the latest phase of Operation Rat Trap.

At just after midnight this morning (Thursday 28 October) police arrested two males aged 34 and 14 years at the rear of the terraced property on suspicion of being involved in theft of copper pipes from the address. Shortly after a police dog patrol found a 17-year-old male in the loft of the address.

Inspector Mark Hardern said “We targeted the area after a small number of thefts of metals from vacant homes occurred in the area. We are very pleased with these latest successes for our rat trap operation which is helping us tackle those involved in this sort of crime.

The reality for criminals now is they can never be sure what is or isn’t a police rat trap. We are now able to target our activity in tackling burglary and vehicle crime. Whilst we can’t disclose the details of the tactics we are using, we can say any car, van, truck, house, shed or commercial premises could be being monitored to help us achieve these impressive results.”

The three males remain in custody at the Northern Area Custody Facility in Etruria and will be questioned later by detectives investigating the incident.

Further rat trap operations are already underway across the city to help police to continue to reduce the numbers of victims affected by crime.