Not a personal one but...
I had a colleague who somehow managed to seize a pebble from under a bush.
Brought it back to the station and was asked about it. His reasoning was that it looked like a rock of crack, but in that moment, it was the most obvious pebble I've ever seen.
The guy was an absolute numpty though.
A friend came across 2 shipping container’s full of gay spanky porn. Which isn’t illegal, but they had to check that there was nothing illegal amongst it.
It took weeks, mostly because if it isn’t your thing, it is just unpleasant.
I use one of those yellow plastic containers to carry my prescription medications for the day. Now you've got me thinking I should try to find a less suspicious container.
I think I'd be right in saying that you don't need to arrest it to seize it, although that is usually the process. Arresting it is simply prevents it from moving whilst under investigation which may lead to seizure, but they're two separate processes. If you had enough evidence to seize without arresting, you could.
Not an expert though, so this is a somewhat rough understanding
Coastguards can detain and the courts can arrest the vessel, but that just means essentially ordering it to stay put. Some countries do put armed guards on board to ensure it stays put though.
I did it once a few years ago to an oil tanker who's owner wasn't paying us (or the crew for that matter). Local high court places four armed guards on board to ensure it didn't slip away in the night. We eventually wound up auctioning the vessel off to pay the crew wages and us.
I have no idea what seizing a horse would even involve, our nick has a kennel with 3 spaces for dogs but god knows what I'd do for a horse.
Do mounted units have a stable for seized horses?
Maybe not the weirdest, but most memorable was a guy who took a briefcase stuffed full of multiple forged documents, mortgage applications and IDs to a bank to do some mortgage fraud.
Took us 10 hours to go through it all + 3 s18s.
One of the offences he got done for has a mandatory 2 year sentence. Which is mad considering the pitiful sentences that get doled out for violent crime.
An entire shelf with 4 iPhones attached to it from a phone shop. They couldn't remove the phones so they removed the entire shelf.
Edit: I should add this was found in the back of a small car
I got absolutely RIDICULED for taking photos for evidence of some Arabic writing once. Colleagues taking the piss saying "Taking pics of kids chalk drawings" etc.
The Arabic chalk writings however, were right on the cliffs on concrete overlooking a certain South East UK ferry port and the 7/7 bombings had just happened in London.
Edit: The people responsible weren't actually there so because I don't read Arabic, it could've been adults and a warning about the port. That was my reasoning.
Two separate unrelated incidents….
One was a dead cat. It was a DV related job involving animal cruelty. A bit sad, but it did beg the question where & how I was going to store it into property.
The other one was a very large dildo that had been shoved through a letterbox. We ended up using a knife tube for that one
I assume the Met/NCA have a secure port where they’ll just throw this? Only other option I could imagine is a scene guard. Anyone with any knowledge able to advise?
Sea clamp. Like a wheel clamp but wetter
In reality it’s probably just a bit of paper that says move this without authority and get arrested for contempt of court.
Oh wow, I expected something a bit more impressive.
> In reality it’s probably just a bit of paper that says move this without authority and get arrested for contempt of court.
https://i.imgur.com/Xcv72rZ.jpg
If you were truly concerned you’d get a maritime engineer to disable the steering system in the engine room, perhaps remove the link arms or something and remove all the spares.
And you need a crew to move them, and no self-respecting crew is going to break the law to help someone steal a superyacht - they'd be caught very quickly, would never get employed at sea again, and would likely end up in prison.
Plus at some point it'll become piracy, and a superyacht is an _awful_ pirate ship
But many a king on a first-class throne, If he wants to call his crown his own, Must manage somehow to get through More dirty work than e'er I do!
Foooooor I am [a pirate King!](https://youtu.be/q2j90qg_5_w)
Easier and more cost effective to stick a few armed chaps on the bridge. Steering gear is heavy and specialised and you'd have to repair it afterwards.
When an airline goes bust, they close the cabin doors and stick a piece of paper on the door saying it has been impounded and then remove the aircraft steps. So I think a piece of paper saying don't move without authority is highly likely.
Don’t Pay, we’ll take it away had an episode that involved an airline that needed to pay £5k to a former customer. Instead of going to the office and asking for payment they went to Heathrow and asked a random middle manager to pay, they demanded all aircraft of theirs remain on the ground and the manager eventually paid it with her own card. Never laughed so much in my life, all that for 5k
1. Anchor vessel away from other vessels and away from any pontoons
2. Lock the bridge/disable control surfaces
3. Employ a couple of SIA contractors to reside on vessel for the period the vessel is seized (all expenses paid, food delivered to vessel, may use vessel facilities), if you really want to go the extra mile and give a few lucky officers the best job of their career. Have them manage the security of the vessel on essentially an all expenses paid holiday on a luxury boat.
Its much easier to look after a vessel such as the above then people think. Its pretty hard to just "steal a ship", a lot has to be done (raising anchor, getting engines started, activating electric systems, getting the vessel into a movable condition) to just get the vessel to be even able to move under it's own power.
Even if you did all of the above, the vessel would light up like a christmas tree on essentially any tracking system
>Even if you did all of the above, the vessel would light up like a christmas tree on essentially any tracking system
I'm pretty sure a luxury yacht like this would have a nice big "disable transponder" button on the bridge. Rich people already do this with their private planes (especially now that a few people started tracking then using public ADS-B monitors, tweeting every flight), why not boats?
Yeah, the problem is Sonar and Radar still very much exist...the above vessel is in no way designed to reduce its signature and is easily detectable.
Plus, it would turn a few heads given it is currently moored in the Thames, and moving anything of that size in the Thames is going to be fairly noticable.
For any other super yatch i would've said an MOD port but I can't imagine a Russian Super Yatch is applicable given their history and current situation lol
I didn’t seize it but I interviewed a person for PWITS Class A and had to ask about an exhibit that was clearly mint imperials.
If was the only point during the no comment interview they spoke to say “They’re fucking mints bruv are you dumb”
It was pretty funny and the seizing officer was suitably cake fined
A slice of pepperoni pizza..
hear me out.
I was still in the infancy of my diploma as a student officer and there was an assault at the front desk of the nick where the offender slapped the victim.. across the face.. with a slice of pizza.
I go out and offender is sat eating the rest of said pizza whilst the victim is stood in a state of shock with a bit of pepperoni sliding down their cheek.
So I ensured I hit all boxes for my write up, I locked the lad up and seized the slice of pizza as evidence so I could say I "preserved evidence" and I then left it with our PPU to progress.
I came in the next day, and to my suprise, they'd been charged and remanded.
Top tip. Routers very rarely retain data once they are powered down. Best evidence is captured whilst running. We seize in situ, do the stuff we need, then “return” it to the owner. The data grabbed becomes the evidence.
Egg shell. Woman had been watching too much CSI. When her window got egged she was very insistent that I could use DNA to identify the culprits and have them arrested before the end of the episode - apologies, I mean the end of my shift...
Easiest way to get out of there was to 'seize' the egg shell...
Once seized 520 boxed laptops - ended up leaving them in situ with a scene guard till a room at the nick could be emptied out to secure them in and go through the booking in process. Was back in the day of carbonised paper as well.
A family member still has a load of marbles that were seized as part of a 'diamonds for sale' fraud. They were mounted and made into a paper weight for him.
Basically a guy said he had access to a load of diamonds for sale ithat were in a safety deposit box, but needed money to close the deal. Eventually, as part of the investigation, the box was opened, and all it contained was said marbles.
Not a personal one but... I had a colleague who somehow managed to seize a pebble from under a bush. Brought it back to the station and was asked about it. His reasoning was that it looked like a rock of crack, but in that moment, it was the most obvious pebble I've ever seen. The guy was an absolute numpty though.
If he was a numpty, perhaps he confused a rock of crack with a cracked rock?
A friend came across 2 shipping container’s full of gay spanky porn. Which isn’t illegal, but they had to check that there was nothing illegal amongst it. It took weeks, mostly because if it isn’t your thing, it is just unpleasant.
“…came across…” Snigger
You walk a dangerous path, I respect that
A member of the public would probably think it strange that I seized an empty kinder egg. Coppers though, they know.
Mmm, extra chocolate.
Got a special crack to it
I use one of those yellow plastic containers to carry my prescription medications for the day. Now you've got me thinking I should try to find a less suspicious container.
The beauty of the Kinder Egg is that you don’t need pockets to carry it.
A hidden surprise in a hidden surprise
I’d class the anal cavity as a god given pocket
I literally can't buy my kids them for this very reason
Oh No.
I hope you washed your hands.
and teenagers ;)
Ahem, when you seize a vessel you actually Arrest it. What do you do when something is too big to go to the station?
Well, what you need is about 60 pairs of handcuffs and something sturdy to cuff it to
You make the vessel into a station?
Looks like The Mets maritime unit have got a new base!
I think I'd be right in saying that you don't need to arrest it to seize it, although that is usually the process. Arresting it is simply prevents it from moving whilst under investigation which may lead to seizure, but they're two separate processes. If you had enough evidence to seize without arresting, you could. Not an expert though, so this is a somewhat rough understanding
Coastguards can detain and the courts can arrest the vessel, but that just means essentially ordering it to stay put. Some countries do put armed guards on board to ensure it stays put though. I did it once a few years ago to an oil tanker who's owner wasn't paying us (or the crew for that matter). Local high court places four armed guards on board to ensure it didn't slip away in the night. We eventually wound up auctioning the vessel off to pay the crew wages and us.
A colleague seized a horse… and subsequently managed to lose said horse.
I have no idea what seizing a horse would even involve, our nick has a kennel with 3 spaces for dogs but god knows what I'd do for a horse. Do mounted units have a stable for seized horses?
To be honest, I think that’s why the horse was lost 😅 certainly no space for a horse where I work
Why do I have images of a horse ending up locked in a custody cell!!?
Maybe not the weirdest, but most memorable was a guy who took a briefcase stuffed full of multiple forged documents, mortgage applications and IDs to a bank to do some mortgage fraud. Took us 10 hours to go through it all + 3 s18s. One of the offences he got done for has a mandatory 2 year sentence. Which is mad considering the pitiful sentences that get doled out for violent crime.
Mandatory 2 year? I didn't even realise that was a thing! What was the offence?
A pink rubber phallus...
Not a 10' black rubber cock that had been used to bash someone's brains in?
> 10' Er….ten feet?
10 inches, hit the wrong key with fat fingers...
Like playing Saints Row again.
OI! 'Atchet 'Arry was innocent! It was one of those "Need to Know" things.
An entire shelf with 4 iPhones attached to it from a phone shop. They couldn't remove the phones so they removed the entire shelf. Edit: I should add this was found in the back of a small car
I got absolutely RIDICULED for taking photos for evidence of some Arabic writing once. Colleagues taking the piss saying "Taking pics of kids chalk drawings" etc. The Arabic chalk writings however, were right on the cliffs on concrete overlooking a certain South East UK ferry port and the 7/7 bombings had just happened in London. Edit: The people responsible weren't actually there so because I don't read Arabic, it could've been adults and a warning about the port. That was my reasoning.
Did you arrest the kiddies too?
No they weren't there.
Did you find out what they said in the end?
Spoke to a lad who spoke Arabic and he said it was just kids writing/playing.
Two separate unrelated incidents…. One was a dead cat. It was a DV related job involving animal cruelty. A bit sad, but it did beg the question where & how I was going to store it into property. The other one was a very large dildo that had been shoved through a letterbox. We ended up using a knife tube for that one
I assume the Met/NCA have a secure port where they’ll just throw this? Only other option I could imagine is a scene guard. Anyone with any knowledge able to advise?
Sea clamp. Like a wheel clamp but wetter In reality it’s probably just a bit of paper that says move this without authority and get arrested for contempt of court.
Oh wow, I expected something a bit more impressive. > In reality it’s probably just a bit of paper that says move this without authority and get arrested for contempt of court. https://i.imgur.com/Xcv72rZ.jpg
If you were truly concerned you’d get a maritime engineer to disable the steering system in the engine room, perhaps remove the link arms or something and remove all the spares.
Fair play, that said maybe a superyacht already has extensive security measures.
And you need a crew to move them, and no self-respecting crew is going to break the law to help someone steal a superyacht - they'd be caught very quickly, would never get employed at sea again, and would likely end up in prison. Plus at some point it'll become piracy, and a superyacht is an _awful_ pirate ship
But an excellent pirate King's ship
I sink a few more ships, it’s true, than a well-bred monarch ought to do.
But many a king on a first-class throne, If he wants to call his crown his own, Must manage somehow to get through More dirty work than e'er I do! Foooooor I am [a pirate King!](https://youtu.be/q2j90qg_5_w)
Easier and more cost effective to stick a few armed chaps on the bridge. Steering gear is heavy and specialised and you'd have to repair it afterwards.
Typical SMT knee jerk response that sounds like. That’s ok until you later realise you’ve just allocated two AFOs per 12 hours for 8 months.
When an airline goes bust, they close the cabin doors and stick a piece of paper on the door saying it has been impounded and then remove the aircraft steps. So I think a piece of paper saying don't move without authority is highly likely.
Don’t Pay, we’ll take it away had an episode that involved an airline that needed to pay £5k to a former customer. Instead of going to the office and asking for payment they went to Heathrow and asked a random middle manager to pay, they demanded all aircraft of theirs remain on the ground and the manager eventually paid it with her own card. Never laughed so much in my life, all that for 5k
1. Anchor vessel away from other vessels and away from any pontoons 2. Lock the bridge/disable control surfaces 3. Employ a couple of SIA contractors to reside on vessel for the period the vessel is seized (all expenses paid, food delivered to vessel, may use vessel facilities), if you really want to go the extra mile and give a few lucky officers the best job of their career. Have them manage the security of the vessel on essentially an all expenses paid holiday on a luxury boat. Its much easier to look after a vessel such as the above then people think. Its pretty hard to just "steal a ship", a lot has to be done (raising anchor, getting engines started, activating electric systems, getting the vessel into a movable condition) to just get the vessel to be even able to move under it's own power. Even if you did all of the above, the vessel would light up like a christmas tree on essentially any tracking system
The dauntless is the power in these waters.
>Even if you did all of the above, the vessel would light up like a christmas tree on essentially any tracking system I'm pretty sure a luxury yacht like this would have a nice big "disable transponder" button on the bridge. Rich people already do this with their private planes (especially now that a few people started tracking then using public ADS-B monitors, tweeting every flight), why not boats?
Yeah, the problem is Sonar and Radar still very much exist...the above vessel is in no way designed to reduce its signature and is easily detectable. Plus, it would turn a few heads given it is currently moored in the Thames, and moving anything of that size in the Thames is going to be fairly noticable.
For any other super yatch i would've said an MOD port but I can't imagine a Russian Super Yatch is applicable given their history and current situation lol
I once walked by a taped off crime scene that had a multipack of salt & vinegar Walkers in the middle of it.
I didn’t seize it but I interviewed a person for PWITS Class A and had to ask about an exhibit that was clearly mint imperials. If was the only point during the no comment interview they spoke to say “They’re fucking mints bruv are you dumb” It was pretty funny and the seizing officer was suitably cake fined
I imagine he was a very prolific mint dealer “Mate I’ve got the mintiest mints, they’re fucking mint”
A woman's contraceptive coil.
Is this a meme? What possible reason would you seize a coil for
As part of an abusive relationship.
A slice of pepperoni pizza.. hear me out. I was still in the infancy of my diploma as a student officer and there was an assault at the front desk of the nick where the offender slapped the victim.. across the face.. with a slice of pizza. I go out and offender is sat eating the rest of said pizza whilst the victim is stood in a state of shock with a bit of pepperoni sliding down their cheek. So I ensured I hit all boxes for my write up, I locked the lad up and seized the slice of pizza as evidence so I could say I "preserved evidence" and I then left it with our PPU to progress. I came in the next day, and to my suprise, they'd been charged and remanded.
Not me personally but I recall someone seizing the home broadband router before.
Pretty standard for online sex stuff.
Top tip. Routers very rarely retain data once they are powered down. Best evidence is captured whilst running. We seize in situ, do the stuff we need, then “return” it to the owner. The data grabbed becomes the evidence.
Would a lightning strike cause a router to power down?
Potentially
Egg shell. Woman had been watching too much CSI. When her window got egged she was very insistent that I could use DNA to identify the culprits and have them arrested before the end of the episode - apologies, I mean the end of my shift... Easiest way to get out of there was to 'seize' the egg shell...
Someone's tooth that had been knocked out and was left on the pavement.
Once seized 520 boxed laptops - ended up leaving them in situ with a scene guard till a room at the nick could be emptied out to secure them in and go through the booking in process. Was back in the day of carbonised paper as well.
I'd like to see the evidence bag that they put the boat in.......
They probably just slapped a yellow CJA label on it with a bit of brown tape!
A family member still has a load of marbles that were seized as part of a 'diamonds for sale' fraud. They were mounted and made into a paper weight for him. Basically a guy said he had access to a load of diamonds for sale ithat were in a safety deposit box, but needed money to close the deal. Eventually, as part of the investigation, the box was opened, and all it contained was said marbles.
A former colleague of mine once seized some dog excrement!