Police grab hammer raiders
Justin DavenportFour suspected smash-and-grab robbers were arrested after a dramatic chase through the streets of Knightsbridge today.
They were held only moments after ransacking a jewellery store in the Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel in Cadogan Place.
Police swooped on the gang as they made a getaway on four mopeds.
Four suspects were arrested after they abandoned two mopeds and fled on foot.Two were arrested after jumping on a bus. The others were chased by police and hotel staff after abandoning their bikes and trying to escape over the hotel rooftop.
One guest at the hotel said the eight-man gang struck just after 6am. Wearing crash helmets and armed with sledgehammers they ran inside and smashed the windows of the hotel's jewellery shop.
He said: “They took everything they could get their hands on and ran. But the police were obviously right on top of them because four of them were arrested quickly.” The raid is the second on a hotel in Knightsbridge within the past few days. On Wednesday a group attacked the jewellery shop in the near-by Sheraton Park Tower hotel in Lowndes Square just after midnight.
Smash-and-grab gangs have struck 55 times in the last five months in Islington, Camden and Westminster. Some shops have been targeted as many as nine times. They use high-powered motorbikes and scooters to attack fashion and jewellery stores, smashing windows and grabbing goods.
Over the last few years the gangs are estimated to have got away with millions of pounds of goods. The gang members wear full face helmets and obscure the licence plates of their mainly stolen bikes. The gang, dubbed a “Fagin's kitchen”, includes up to 50 mainly teenage members who know each other and live on estates in Islington.
Police have launched a major operation to tackle the gangs but face difficulties in catching them in the act and chasing the bikes through London's streets. In 2006 one gang member died during a police chase. The gangs have become bolder in their tactics. In recent weeks they have launched daytime raids and switched attention to hotel shops which are difficult to protect.
Anyone with information on this morning's robbery should contact Westminster crime squad on 020 7321 8682.
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