Met Police release footage of luxury watch robbers caught as they target undercover officers
Undercover officers are wearing luxury watches as bait to catch robbers red-handed as they target wealthy visitors to London’s West End.
Footage released by the Met Police shows unwitting thieves being tasered, rugby tackled and wrestled to the ground in Soho after trying to rip the high-value timepieces from their wrists.
The force has revealed the tactic for the first time and says it has driven down robberies after 300 watches worth around £4 million were stolen across three boroughs in the capital between April and September 2022.
Investigators pinpointed “hotspots” in South Kensington, Chelsea, Soho and Mayfair where criminals were targeting victims – 98% of whom are men – as they left bars and nightclubs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights between 11pm and 4am.
The targets would be offered access to sex workers or drugs before being led down a side street or approached from behind.
Police said the “opportunist” crime gangs know exactly what they are looking for – Rolex, Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piguet watches that can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Ben Russell, the commander responsible for covert operations, praised the “immense professionalism and dedication” of the undercover officers “volunteering to stand alone in dark a street in the middle of the night waiting to be robbed”.
An undercover officer struggles with robbers
Undercover officer falls to floor as colleagues pounce
In one clip, an undercover officer who had earlier been asked if he wanted to go to a brothel, walks with a robber as he is followed by four of his accomplices.
They surround him and pin him against the wall before running off when the police pounce, tasering one of the thieves as another is rugby tackled to the ground.
Another robber is seen falling to the floor as he is tasered in a different clip after he and an accomplice, both wearing Nike bags, tried to rob an undercover officer they had earlier offered cannabis to.
One officer is seen having the watch ripped from his wrist after being taken into a side street by two men who had befriended him and in a fourth clip the officer falls to the ground as his colleagues pounce.
There were nearly 2,000 robberies – including 300 watches worth around £4 million – across the boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham, between April and September 2022 – up 4% on the previous six-month period.
Some 31% of those took place in Soho, an area known for its nightlife, but which occupies just 1% of the total size of the three boroughs.
Police said two undercover operations saw reductions in watch robberies with the number across the three boroughs in the summer of 2023 half that of the previous year.
A total of 27 men were arrested, all of whom have been charged, with 14 of the 21 convicted so far sentenced to a total of 26 years in prison.
Aled Jones is among high-profile targets
Since 2015, the number of stolen watches recorded in England and Wales nearly doubled – from 6,696 then to 11,035 in 2022, according to data from Watchfinder & Co that was shared with Sky News last year. More than 6,000 of these thefts were in London.
High profile targets include songs Of Praise presenter Aled Jones, 52, who was robbed of his £17,000 Rolex watch by a teenager who threatened him with a machete.
Former world boxing champion Amir Khan, 36, was forced to hand over his £70,000 Franck Muller watch in a gunpoint robbery outside the Sahara Grill restaurant in Leyton, east London, in April 2022.
And Formula One driver Lando Norris, 23, had his watch stolen as he left the Euro 2020 final at Wembley Stadium.
‘We don’t want people fighting back’
But police said that while gangs may watch celebrities for days or weeks before they strike, many robberies are opportunistic – although the criminals do set out with the intention of identifying vulnerable people who may be drunk or intoxicated outside bars and clubs in Soho.
Mr Russell said wearing a high-value watch in central London was a “personal choice” but advised people to be aware of their surroundings and wear clothes with long sleeves.
He also warned against walking around with your bag on display if the brand name is visible after a buying a new watch and said you should get insurance and take a picture.
“It’s so easy to be distracted by headphones when you’re on your mobile phone, when you come out of the station, when you come out of the venue,” he said.
He said it’s hard to tell someone not to hand over a £100,000 watch but added: “We don’t want people fighting back, we don’t want people to be seriously hurt or injured.”
A workman saved a seven-year-old boy from a burning car in the aftermath of a deadly crash caused by a suicidal ex-pilot, an inquest has heard.
The schoolboy’s rescue came following the collision on the M6, which killed former RAF man Richard Woods and four others, in October last year.
Last week a coroner ruled that Woods, 40, took his own life by deliberately driving his Skoda the wrong way down the motorway while drunk and hitting a Toyota Yaris head-on.
The driver of the Toyota, Jaroslaw Rossa, 42, was also killed, along with his two sons, Filip, 15, and Dominic, seven, and his partner Jade McEnroe, 33.
Cockermouth Coroner’s Court heard on Thursday that Ms McEnroe’s son was also in the car but survived after workman Gavin Walsh came to his rescue at the scene, which was near Tebay services in Cumbria.
In a statement to the inquest, Mr Walsh said he was a passenger in a transit van travelling to Scotland when he witnessed the crash.
He jumped out of the vehicle and used a jack to smash the rear windscreen of the Toyota and pulled the boy out of the burning vehicle.
Mr Walsh said: “We really did try, I can assure everyone we did our best. We only had minimal time.
“I saved a life that day and I hope never to witness anything like that again.”
He added that he has never stopped thinking about the boy, and said: “I hope we will meet again one day and I will give you a massive hug.”
At the time, the family were returning to Glasgow from a trip to Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire.
The inquest heard that Wood, who was travelling at a speed of at least 65mph, would have been charged with manslaughter had he survived.
Recording conclusions of unlawful killing, Cumbria assistant coroner Margaret Taylor said: “I found that Jaroslaw, Jade, Filip and Dominic died as a consequence of the unlawful acts of another driver.”
The inquest heard how Mr Woods, from Cambridgeshire, had served a distinguished 14-year career in the RAF and was a flight instructor for BAE Systems at the time of his death.
Jade McEnroe. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Dominic and Filip. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
In Ms Taylor’s record of inquest, Mr Woods was said to have been experiencing “a number of stressors in his life” and had a “history of harmful use of alcohol”.
Following the crash, he was found to be nearly four times over the legal drink-drive limit and a two-thirds empty bottle of gin was found in his car.
On the day of his death, concerns had been raised over his behaviour at a work conference near Preston in Lancashire.
Mr Woods failed to return to his seat after lunch and was later spotted driving erratically and swerving across three northbound carriageway lanes on the M6.
After pulling onto the hard shoulder, he then proceeded to U-turn and drove southward on lane three.
Filip, Dominic and Jaroslaw Rossa. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Detective Sergeant Deborah Story, from Cumbria Police, told the inquest that Mr Woods would have been prosecuted on four counts of manslaughter had he lived.
She said hypothetical charges of murder were considered by detectives but not thought appropriate because of a lack of information that Mr Woods knew the family or anything that provided a link between them.
Ms McEnroe’s parents, Marie McEnroe and George McNellis, told the coroner they thought it was “murder”.
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A statement from the mother of Filip and Dominic, and the ex-wife of Mr Rossa, Kamila, was read out at the inquest.
She said Mr Rossa, known as Jarek, was born in Poland where they became a couple and went on to have three boys.
He loved playing computer games and had “lots of friends”, she said, and worked at the Wagamama restaurant in Silverburn, Glasgow.
She said she was “devastated” over the deaths, adding: “Our lives will never be the same.
“I am heartbroken at the passing of my beloved angels Filip and Dominic.”
Marie McEnroe said her daughter, a spa therapist, had been in a relationship with Mr Rossa for about two-and-a-half years.
She said Jade had been a “brilliant mother” to her only child, was “really happy” with Mr Rossa and it was “lovely chaos” when all the boys were playing together.
Ms McEnroe added: “Life changed forever that day”.
Ms Taylor praised the “selfless acts of bravery” from those in the aftermath of the collision, including Mr Walsh, who she said went towards the burning car “without hesitation for his own safety”.
The coroner added: “Without his swift response, Jade’s child would also have perished.”
Addressing the bereaved family members, she said: “Your loss is unimaginable but you have conducted yourself with dignity and I thank you for that. I wish you strength for the future.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
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