Over the past two years police have seized 100 kilograms of cocaine and more than £1.6million across the Thames Valley as part of a major crackdown on organised crime – which saw nine people from High Wycombe charged last week.

Detective sergeant Michael Anderson, from Thames Valley Police High Wycombe, urged residents to join officers in the fight against major crime at a meeting of the Wycombe District Neighbourhood Watch Association yesterday evening (July 25).

Last week nine people from High Wycombe were charged with offences including the supplying class A drugs as part of operation Rowlock, which saw 16 warrants executed across the town.

The operation forms part of TVP’s new campaign Stronghold which sees police team up with other organisations and public bodies to tackle organised crime.

In the last two years Thames Valley Police have also carried out 69 “level two” operations, made 240 arrests, seized five kilograms of heroin and 30 kilograms of M-Cat at as part of the crackdown - and they have now called on the public to act.

DS Anderson said: “It has been recognised over many years that police have looked at organised crime as this thing that only the police can deal with – that these are the bad people out there that only the police can tackle, so this is where we have to get our drug squads together and our surveillance operations all these massively resource intensive things.

“But actually we can’t do it without information and the support of our partner agencies. Obviously trading standards who are dealing with people involving financial crime, people dong the door knocking and they will be linked into other people making money from their activity.

“So we need to work with other people – councils are another good one.”

Wycombe residents are urged to help police by talking to their neighbours and reporting any concerns no matter how minor they may be - from missing number plates to abandoned cars.

DS Anderson continued: “We have to use everybody to try and do what we want to do. We can’t succeed on our own in these sorts of things and you guys play a part in that as well.

“It might be vehicles being left at the side of the roads, number plates being stolen, number plates being used to disguise the identity of vehicles and therefore criminals have to travel for whatever reason and great truth is actually if you are a criminal you may be a big time drug dealer, you probably doing other crime as well.

“If you have concerns about something, if you are worried about something, if something doesn’t feel right I would rather know about it than not.”

Serious and organised crime is estimated to cost the country around £24 billion a year; there are estimated to be 1.3 million children exploited by organised crime groups in the UK; and in 2014 there were 952 deaths from heroin and morphine, according to DS Anderson.

Anyone who spots anything suspicious is asked to contact police on 101 or 999 in an emergency.