THOUSANDS of pounds were found in a public place during a secret armed police patrol, it has emerged.

The Cathall estate in Leytonstone was one of only eight areas in London where a new specialist team was deployed.

Officers attached to the newly-formed CO19 unit did not discover any weapons, but £30,000 was found stashed in an unspecified location, a disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) has revealed.

Supt Adrian Hutchinson, who sits on the borough’s Community Safety Board, said the patrols on June 26 last year "were as a result of intelligence that had been gathered regarding a specific area where weapons were allegedly being stored”.

The Guardian is waiting to hear if anyone was arrested as a result of the operation.

Gun crime has shot up in Waltham Forest by 64 per cent in the last year, according to recent Met statistics.

Figures show there were 149 reports of gun-enabled crime in the 12 months to November last year, compared to 89 over the same period the year before. A spate of shootings in Leyton and South Leytonstone in the summer created a climate fear.

A shoot-out in August on Leytonstone's Cathall estate prompted police to plead with the community to break their silence and help police catch those responsible.

Waltham Forest has higher rates of gun crime than Newham, Enfield and Tower Hamlets.

Sue Burns, of the South Leytonstone Area Disrict Association, said: "There are huge issues with gun crime for the police, it is very taxing. It has got worse down here.

"I think community policing is the way forward.” Cllr Afzal Akram, the council's cabinet member for community safety, said he was not aware of the operation at the time.

He added: "If it is a policy I would expect to be made aware, but I don't need to know for a one-off patrol.

"I don't want our police to become like France or America where everyone carries a gun, however with the increasing voracity of violence police sometimes need to be armed."

The Met has said armed officers will only be used as part of pre-planned operations to "address specific issues in small areas".

The FOI disclosure included a statement from an unnamed police officer in Waltham Forest who said the borough has one of London’s highest rates of emergency calls relating to gun crime.

"The application makes clear that gun-enabled crime within the borough is centred within the black community," he added.

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