Essex: Campaign To Tackle Port Crimes

Essex Police has today launched a new campaign aimed at tackling crime at the county's ports.

Operation Yali is targeting criminal activity at Tilbury and Purfleet Ports and wants people working at them to provide information and intelligence. 

It's working in partnership with UK Border Force, Crimestoppers, Forth Ports, Tilbury Port Police, Maritime Transport, London Container and the Counter Terrorism Unit. 

The campaign was launched at an event at the London Cruise Terminal in Tilbury along with representatives from the Port Authorities, Crimestoppers and Nick Alston the Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex. 

Detective Superintendent Paul Maghie, the Head of the Counter Terrorism Investigation Unit at Essex Police was also there and said: "Borders are uniquely a funnel for people to go in and out of the country and they're routinely used by serious and organised gangs smuggling everything from people, drugs, firearms, right up to counter terrrorism, people export goods that they shouldn't be exporting, they import goods for raising funds for financing terrorism - there's a whole array of criminality. 

"What we're trying to do with Operation Yali is giving them (people of Essex) a very confidential reporting mechanism, a very easy reporting mechanism, through crimestoppers- they can ring the police direct or they can ring the anti-terrorism hotline, it's a way for them to get information to the police quickly." 

He went on to explain what people in Essex can be looking out for in order to do their bit to help tackle these kind of crimes: "There's a lot of suspicious activity that goes on at ports. 

"What the people should look for are strangers, they should be looking for people that are acting suspiciously around trucks and containers because often goods are transported in these mechanisms without the permission of the owners. 

"People hide things on lorries and the drivers are unaware but also people should be aware if they see suspicious people approaching other lorry drivers. "Often lorry drivers report to us that they've been offered money to take goods acorss on ferries."