West Midlands Police announced this weekend that they’d made a raid on an illegal gambling den in Birmingham, seizing a variety of cash, weapons, drugs, and even a couple of gaming machines in the process. 

The force said officers of its Serious Organised Crime Squad served a warrant at an address in Ladywell Walk, Birmingham, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The old bill said they subsequently took custody of “large amounts of cash,” “weapons,” both Class A and Class B drugs, and even two gaming machines which they assumed to be “linked to fraud and money laundering.” 

Meanwhile, four men in total were arrested at the property, two on suspicion of money-laundering, and two for immigration offences. As of writing all four were still in police custody for questioning. 

The operation was billed by West Midlands Police as part of their wider Operation Fearless, an ongoing effort to get tough on organised crime, by means of utilsing the seized proceeds of gang-run operations. 

Launched in January with an initial £880,000 of seized criminal assets allocated by Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster, Operation Fearless has broadly been welcomed by Birmingham residents: with its operational remit expanding from the Erdington area in the northeast of the city to the Southside region, which covers both Gay Village and areas around Grand Central, in April.