The capital's terrifying e-bike crime epidemic

Street robberies went up 19 per cent in the year to February. with perpetrators on super-fast bikes escaping with frightening ease. Anthony France and Jonathan Kanengoni go on patrol with the Operation Venice squad, a Met unit tackling the problem

THE £4,900 Sur-Ron off-road cycle is so lightweight it can reach speeds of up to 50mph. Police say that by weaving through traffic the electric bike can easily beat the 40 minutes it often takes a car to get from Green Park to Finsbury Park. A. This is a well-worn route for the stealth e-bikes when used by masked robbers behind a 19 per cent rise in luxury watch and mobile phone snatches. Last month, Evening Standard journalists joined the Metropolitan Police's elite Operation Venice squad on patrol. They are cracking down on these kinds of offenders by targeting robbery hotspots in the central, south and west parts of London. Each week an average of 180 victims are attacked for their valuables on the street. Like paralegal Kathryn, 24, who was bundled screaming into a side road near Waterloo after muggers spotted a £3,700 Rolex on her wrist.

Kathryn said: "I was on the phone to my friend who I was meeting. As I got to the zebra crossing, these two guys, one with a Covid face mask and the other with a hat pulled down over his eye, whispered: 'Pretty girl, let me talk to you "I firmly said 'no' and carried on walking, but one grabbed my wrist. He started dragging me by the hand.

"My friend could hear me on the phone screaming. They were pulling me into a side street, I thought I was going to get raped. Fortunately, some members of the public ran towards me. The men ran down an alleyway and weren't seen again."

She called 999 and police arrived swiftly but the pair were long gone.

At Southwark police station, Detective Inspector Treasa O'Donoghue (below) is briefing Venice interceptor officers before they hit the streets at 3pm. The team, in marked cars and on BMW motorbikes, are authorised to use "tactical contact" to bump suspects off mopeds or e-bikes.