Police quiz animal activists after raidsMay 2 2007
A TOTAL of 32 people are being questioned by detectives after raids targeting animal rights extremists including one in Worcestershire.
Police have also seized £100,000 in cash, mobile telephones, computer equipment and documents during the operation which involved 700 officers and has been described as the largest of its kind.
A total of 32 people - 15 men and 17 women - aged between 19 and 68, were arrested in the 30 raids targeting animal rights extremists carried out today across the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands.
An arrest warrant was carried out in Boat Lane, Evesham, but no-one was detained.
In Lancashire, a 51-year-old man and a 59-year-old woman were arrested in Lytham Road, Ashton-on-Ribble; and in Merseyside, a woman was arrested at Freshfields Animal Rescue Centre, East Lane, Ince, Blundell, Liverpool.
In Brynmair, Aberdare, south Wales, a 20-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman were arrested
Financial investigators from the City of London Police Economic Crime Unit are assisting in relation to the quantities of cash recovered.
The raids were the culmination of a two-year investigation into an alleged conspiracy of extremism targeting a variety of organisations and individuals, including Huntingdon Life Sciences in Cambridgeshire, police said.
Officers executed warrants to enter and search premises in Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Glasgow, Greater London, Merseyside, Worcestershire, Lancashire, Northumbria, Yorkshire, South Wales, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Huntingdon Life Sciences has long been a focus both of peaceful demonstrations and more extreme tactics.
A spokesman for Huntingdon Life Sciences said: "It is great to see the results of police investigations from over the past two years beginning to control the activities of animal rights extremists in the UK
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