South Yorkshire crackdown on organised crime saw guns and hundreds of kilos of drugs seized in 2025
South Yorkshire Police has been highlighting some of its most successful operations of last year
Four major South Yorkshire policing operations in 2025 have been highlighted to show how the force is tackling serious organised crime.
The success of the four operations was outlined to a meeting of South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) police scrutiny board today (March 11), chaired by deputy mayor Kilvinder Vigurs, who oversees policing and criminal justice services.
In Sheffield:
Operation Dime Kilo – 39kg of Class A drugs and 3 firearms recovered from address in Lodge Moor following Serious Organised Crime (SOC) operation. Oliver Hughes, Suqlain Hussain and Graham Mcilhagga all pleaded guilty at court to conspiracy to supply.
Operation Iodine Mike – converted firearm recovered with 10 rounds of ammunition, 1.5 Kg of Class A heroin seized, £75,000 recovered in cash and cryptocurrency. Dane Wood charged and remanded and five suspects on bail.
Rotherham:
Operation Leave Charlie – Firearms discharge in Maltby, May 2025. Warrant executed and sawn-off shotgun recovered. Luke Rushforth and Joshua Stevens pleaded guilty at court to possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear or violence. Both sentenced on January 23, 2026 to 6 years imprisonment.
Doncaster:
Operation Snake Alpha – Large-scale eBay vehicle fraud. Patrick Stokes, Michael Stokes and Liam Cumbor each sentenced to a 2 years, 6 months custodial sentence.
Barnsley:
Operation Sedile Bravo – wanted person inquiry led to the successful detention of a male in Peterborough for offences of Section 16 Firearms Act and GBH in Barnsley and West Yorks Police area.
Assistant Chief Constable Hayley Barnett said that the police serious organised crime unit tackles firearms and drugs offences but also sexual abuse, people trafficking, modern slavery and fraud. They are all ways that organised criminals seek to fund their illegal activities.
Operation Fortify is an ongoing initiative that uses information from covert operations to ensure that the police response aligns exactly with the highest current threats, said ACC Barnett.
She gave an example of Woodhouse in Sheffield, where police have been undertaking a ‘Clear Hold Build’ operation to tackle serious drug dealing and anti-social behaviour that was causing fear in the community.
Clear Hold Build is a three-phase response for areas hit by a high level of organised crime. First, police push hard to clear out the criminals, then use a high-visibility presence to stabilise the situation and finally build community resilience and tackle the root causes.
ACC Barnett said there were more than 50 stop and searches carried out in Woodhouse, 14 arrests made and 180 kilos of drugs seized, plus cash and weapons.
“The next stage is diverting young people away from anti-social behaviour, giving them other options.
“We are also working with the community to empower them to take action for themselves.” Work in communities includes holding drop-in sessions and promoting the Crimestoppers scheme so individuals can report crime anonymously.
Other Clear Hold Build operations cover Upperthorpe in Sheffield and Edlington in Doncaster.
In Rotherham, the Lifewise Centre is tackling online safety and knife crime. It engages with young people and conducts outreach sessions in schools.
ACC Barnett said: “Whilst there’s a lot that we can’t speak to the public about in that covert space, there’s still an awful lot of successes that we can celebrate.”
Other actions include working with the probation service and prisons to tackle illegal drones dropping drugs into prisons. ACC Barnett said that real successes included identifying corrupt prison staff.
Modern slavery operations have targeted car washes and nail bars.
Global instability and migration means that criminals can also exploit vulnerable people who are seeking safety and force them into crime.
Online crime is a huge problem because many people bank and shop online and use social media networks, giving criminals the opportunity to exploit them.
ACC Barnett said many people are too embarrassed to report online crime. She said she had been a victim of online fraud herself, accidentally using what she thought was an online link to her insurance company and losing hundreds of pounds before she realised her mistake.
She said that victims of the same scam lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in total and one person sadly committed suicide.
‘Com networks’ involve individuals who manipulate and coerce people online to commit harm against themselves or others, said ACC Barnett.
“There have been two significant cases in South Yorkshire,” she added. “It is really concerning because it predominantly impacts young people who mainly spend a lot of time online.
“We are trying to find ways of educating practitioners to see what the signs are and put interventions in place at the earliest opportunity.”
One real success over the past five years has been a drop in armed crime, said ACC Barnett, “because of the impact of relentless use of the armed crime teams and warrants, making it really hard for the criminals to operate”.
ACC Barnett said that new synthetic opioid drugs are hitting the streets all the time. This has led to an increase in deaths nationwide.
The force has invested in additional testing to identify new drugs more quickly without having to send samples to a laboratory.
She said that Operation Snake Alpha, which involved selling vehicles online that did not exist, had reached across the country. It shows how complex organised crime has become.
It also hits many people and companies including taxi and delivery firms, who struggle to operate after financial losses. Police work hard to recover money for the victims and make sure that criminals do not profit.
ACC Barnett said that inspectors judged that South Yorkshire Police are ‘good’ at tackling organised crime. “We’ve got the ability and absolute will to be ‘outstanding’ in this area,” she added.