The office building at the centre of one of the Metropolitan Police’s biggest scandals has gone on the market.
From the early 1970’s an industrial unit in Rigg Approach on the Argyll Estate, Leyton was used by the Flying Squad.
Nicknamed The Sweeney the group of officers involved handled serious criminal investigations in the capital.
However some were suspected of siphoning off cash recovered from criminals. In 1998 the unit was raided, sparking one of the longest and most expensive police corruption cases in British criminal history.
It followed three years of investigations into the activities of the Flying Squad by an elite team of officers selected to run corruption out of the Met.
A total of five former Rigg Approach officers were jailed, two of which promised to give evidence against four others.
However their trial collapsed in 2003 when one of the informants was deemed ‘unfit’ to give evidence.
The Flying Squad’s home has now gone on sale as a part of the Met’s Estates Strategy.
Stella Creasy MP told residents in her weekly newsletter that the sale would not affect local policing.
She said: “The police state that although these are MPS premises, they are used by a central department as opposed to local police.
“Therefore they state that this will have no impact on Waltham Forest Police in terms of access to buildings or resources and so police services to the borough will be unaffected.”
Freehold’s in the area sell for around £1,800,000.
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