The series of raids were carried out in Bury on Thursday (Picture: MEN)
A series of police raids has resulted in the seizure of drugs and numerous weapons including machetes, zombie knives and an imitation firearm.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) today announced the arrests of 30 people at various properties across the Bury area.
The force said that ‘huge’ amounts of cash, drugs and dangerous weapons were recovered from the targeted locations in Radcliffe, Unsworth and Whitefield on Thursday.
The raids were carried out as part of Operation AVRO, a forcewide initiative that aims to ‘flood’ a particular part of the wider region with police resources each month.
Officials added that roughly £12,000 worth of illegal goods were also seized from businesses during this month’s drive.
This included almost 1,000 illegal vapes and more than 4,200 cigarettes.
Road officers also issued penalties for a combined 127 traffic and speeding offences, resulting in the issuance of six driving prohibition notices, the seizure of three vehicles, and the arrest of one person.
The coordinated action comes after a series of controversies and scandals surrounding the Greater Manchester Police (Picture: MEN MEDIA)
Chris Hill, a GMP Chief Superintendent and Commander for Bury, said: ‘Operation AVRO is our opportunity to intensify our resources across Greater Manchester by taking the fight to the criminal and keeping people in the borough of Bury safe.
‘The only way we can take criminals off the streets is by information from the public, and all the activity we executed yesterday is all garnered in this way, so thank you to those who have given us such intelligence.
‘We’ve arrested 30 people, taken vehicles off the road and our actions, with help from our partners, have seen some significant results across the Bury district.’
It comes at a time of increased scrutiny following a series of controversies and scandals that have damaged public trust in the force.
News broke in February that one of the Greater Manchester Police’s constables, Radslaw Mikulski, had been sacked for using racially aggravated language on two separate occasions.
Though the exact nature of his comments have not been revealed, they were severe enough for his superiors to have ordered his name be added to a blacklist at the College of Policing.
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Meanwhile, the force continues to await the outcome of a public inquiry into the treatment of women in custody, which rests in part on allegations from a woman who claims that officers with the Greater Manchester Police forced her to strip naked in a cell while threatening her into dropping complaints against them.
Released earlier in January, another searing report has already found that vulnerable children were ‘left at the mercy’ of pedophile grooming gangs in Rochdale for years after police repeatedly failed to investigate allegations of child abuse.
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