Gang of gold thieves shoot courier in stun gun attack

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The raiders struck at 10.55am - but the gang was arrested only an hour later after being tracked by police as they fled in a car across London.

Armed officers ambushed the getaway car in a Dagenham street, shooting the tyres with shotgun rounds to bring it to a halt.

The raid took place in a corridor in the offices of Gerrards precious metals business in Hatton Garden. The gang of four men lay in wait for the courier and shot him with a stun gun before stealing three bars of gold bullion worth nearly £100,000.

As the gang fled in a red Vauxhall Astra car a passer-by noted the registration number and passed it to police.

Details of the vehicle were flashed across London and the registration was detected by an Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera as it passed through Tower Hamlets.

The car was picked up by other cameras as it moved east, allowing Flying Squad officers to track the car and then swoop on the gang in Ivyhouse Road in Dagenham. Four men in their twenties were arrested at the scene and were being questioned at a police station this afternoon.

The courier was taken to hospital as a precaution but was said to be all right.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Four men have been arrested and are currently in custody. The items stolen have been recovered." A spokeswoman for Gerrards said they could not comment on the raid.

Police are increasingly using ANPR cameras in the fight against crime but details of how many cameras are deployed, and their locations, are a secret.

The City of London has a ring of cameras around the Square Mile which can instantly detect suspicious vehicles entering the City.

The Brink's-Mat robbery at a Heathrow warehouse in 1983 was Britain's biggest gold bullion heist. A gang got away with £25million of gold bars. In 2004 the Flying Squad thwarted an attempt to steal £40million of gold bullion from a Heathrow warehouse.