Homes across Kent have been raided by police today in a major joint operation to combat theft.

Operation Illinois brought together 215 officers from the British Transport Police and Kent Police.

Dawn raids were carried out on 19 addresses in Gravesend, Dartford, Gillingham and Chatham this morning.

So far, 23 suspects have been arrested and taken into custody following the raids, which targeted people suspected of theft-related offences.

Officers from the British Transport Police were hoping to catch thieves who target passengers on late night trains in the county.

Arrests have been made and are being processed.

"Each crime has a victim attached to it and each crime generates a lot of sorrow from each individual victim" - Supt Jason Bunyard

Speaking earlier, Supt Jason Bunyard, of British Transport Police, said: "I think if you take a theft in isolation some may argue that it could be petty but that’s not the case at all.

"Each crime has a victim attached to it and each crime generates a lot of sorrow from each individual victim.

“I think it’s extremely important that we, as the police service, take these types of incidents seriously and I think this particular operation demonstrates these are not isolated offences, these are essentially a conspiracy.

“These are a number of people coming together and committing a large scale of offences over quite a long period of time.”

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