The driver of the flash new Mercedes followed the direction of the police officer’s outstretched arm and turned left off Main Road East into Watford Road.
He pulled up behind a Toyota van and wound down his window. The police officer asked for his name and address, and within minutes had called his bluff.
The man was fined for giving a false name and driving on a suspended licence.
The 25-year-old St Albans resident, who told officers he worked in real estate, sat forlornly in his car in the sweltering heat that blanketed Melbourne last Thursday, waiting for a taxi home – his $90,000 turbo-charged Mercedes was towed away and impounded.
He had only picked the car up from the impound yard a week beforehand.
The man was the fourth driver police netted flouting the law within just half an hour last Thursday, using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology to scan the number plates of westbound traffic along Main Road East.
Over four hours, police detected 72 offences – 12 people were caught with unregistered vehicles, nine were driving while suspended and two were charged with possessing drugs of dependence. One was caught drug driving.
The five-day long Operation Deadline had kicked off last Monday in St Albans. Acting Sergeant Steven Boskovski oversaw the operation, which included an information caravan set up in Alfrieda Street, from where officers introduced themselves to local business owners and residents.
“They’re our best form of intelligence,” he said. “The focus is intelligence-gathering. They are our eyes and ears, and we are only as good as the support we get from them,” Acting Sergeant Boskovski said.
By the week’s end, 50 people had been arrested for crimes including burglary, thefts, drugs, weapons and traffic offences.
Acting Sergeant Boskovski said a number of those caught are believed to be behind a spate of burglaries around Brimbank.
