MOBILE criminals are feeling the pinch after a specialist police team seized more than £1m of cash and goods in the last three months alone.

The Regional Roads Policing Team was launched last autumn to deny criminals the use of Yorkshire’s roads and stop offenders who cross force boundaries to commit crimes.

And between January 1 and March 31 the team has seized £1,000,668 of assets and stolen property from criminals who were using the roads.

The team is one of the first of its kind in the country and is a joint collaboration between four police forces, including North Yorkshire’s.

It uses a combination of specialist skills, sophisticated technology, and information supplied by the Regional Intelligence Unit to track down those who use roads to carry out serious and organised crime.

Each unit comprises a sergeant and eight police constables drawn from North, West and South Yorkshire forces.

Experienced officers from each of the four forces use a combination of high performance vehicles with state-of-the-art automatic number plate recognition technology from cameras in vehicles, together with intelligence.

The team’s head, Chief Inspector Mick Hunter, said: "The team is working hard to drive down crime, disrupt organised criminal networks and reduce casualties on our roads.

"The £1m mark of recovered goods in just three months illustrates how the officers and staff within the department are already having an impressive impact against criminal networks across the region."

He added: "Local communities across the region have already benefited from our activity that has seen criminals arrested for offences such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, serious theft and fraud."

The team is the first fully-functional collaborative unit that has seen the four forces working together to delivery regional services.

South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes, speaking on behalf of the four Yorkshire and Humber chief constables, said: "The results are already showing what can be achieved by working together as a region and focusing on those using the roads to commit crime.

"A joint-working approach is delivering great results and represents good value for the region."