A clampdown on the "industrial-scale" crime of mobile phone-snatching across London has resulted in 230 people being arrested by the Metropolitan Police in the past week. In its battle against the "scourge of mobile phone crime",

London police asked some residents to stay indoors as they dealt with a person barricaded inside a home on Thursday in the city’s Southcrest neighbourhood, west of downtown. One man was arrested after a police call to check on a person’s welfare on Thursday resulted in a protracted standoff at a townhouse west of downtown London.

The ‘blitz’ by the police has taken place in London where all the arrests have been made, while the force says it has also seized more than 1000 handsets. To catch the criminals, the police have been working as plain-clothed officers in hotspot areas to catch the offenders.

The Metropolitan Police has arrested 230 people and seized more than 1,000 phones in a week. The force targeted those involved in stealing, handling and supplying stolen phones in a week of "co-ordinated activity" across London in a bid to disrupt the “£50 million-a-year trade in stolen phones".