Met halves luxury watch robbery in covert operations to lure criminals

Commander praises officers who ‘volunteered to stand alone in dark streets in the middle of the night, waiting to be robbed’

A covert police operation in London involving undercover officers flaunting brands such as Rolex in the hope they would be targeted by criminals has helped cut luxury watch robberies by nearly half, Scotland Yard has said.

Metropolitan police officers loitered around the capital’s most swish nightclubs and restaurants and lured would-be robbers by posing with timepieces worth tens of thousands of pounds.