{"id":86140,"date":"2025-05-09T01:57:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T01:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/86140\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T01:57:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T01:57:14","slug":"weapons-50k-cash-haul-and-illegal-tobacco-found-amid-police-crackdown-in-birmingham-city-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/86140\/","title":{"rendered":"Weapons, \u00a350k cash haul and illegal tobacco found amid police crackdown in Birmingham city centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Operation Fearless officers now tackling everything from retail crime to robbery in the heart of the city<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1_imageiwpr.png\" alt=\"Some of the discoveries as part of Operation Fearless \" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Some of the discoveries as part of Operation Fearless (Image: WMP)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A huge haul of illegal tobacco, \u00a350,000 in cash and a number of weapons have been recovered as part of a new crackdown on crime in <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/birmingham-city-centre\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Birmingham city centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The discoveries, which come a week into the work of Operation Fearless in the centre, began as police stopped a car on Pershore Street at 3.15pm yesterday, May 7.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Inside the car, officers uncovered a baseball bat, wooden club, metal bar and knuckle duster. The driver was arrested.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">Read more: <\/strong><a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/birmingham-city-centre-drama-teens-31599500\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Birmingham city centre drama as teens tackled to ground by police in stolen bike arrest<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The Operation, which began earlier this year in <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/erdington\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Erdington<\/a>, is now targeting the heart of the city, with officers hoping to tackle everything from retail crime and anti-social behaviour, to robbery and drug dealing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A number of searches were carried out further afield as part of police enquiries, with more arrests made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">At an address in the <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/perry-barr\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Perry Barr<\/a> area, officers found \u00a340,000 in cash as well as counterfeit tobacco.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">This was in the process of being weighed up and packaged to be sold on the black market, which police say comes at a &#8220;huge cost to the taxpayer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Three men and two women remain under arrest today, May 8, for offences including conspiracy to defraud and possession of an offensive weapon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">In another search this afternoon, \u00a310,000 in cash was seized. Det Supt Jim Munro, leading Operation Fearless, said: &#8220;Excellent proactive work in stopping a car has led to the recovery of a huge amount of cash and illegal tobacco.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;It\u2019s the most significant success we\u2019ve had since arriving in Southside last week, and just goes to show that Fearless is ready and able to tackle everything from anti-social behaviour to serious and organised crime.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Operation Fearless officers now tackling everything from retail crime to robbery in the heart of the citySome of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,983,748,188,393,4884,16,15,7830],"class_list":{"0":"post-86140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-centre","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-west-midlands-police"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114475397431587692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}