DESPERATE criminals are dressing up in official-looking high visibility jackets to rummage through front gardens and wheelie bins looking for scrap metal.
Walthamstow resident Anne-Marie O'Hara, 44, said police told her there was an epidemic of such cases in the borough after she caught two men red-handed going through a neighbour's rubbish.
A Met spokesman said there had been at least four similar incidents in Walthamstow and Chingford last month but that the number of unreported cases could be higher.
Ms O'Hara, of Fleeming Road, said: "I was walking near the park on Sunday morning when I saw these two men with hi-vis jackets and naturally assumed they were binmen.
"But as I walked closer it didn't seem quite right. One had a shopping trolley and another had a baby's buggy.
"I confronted them and they initially pretended they couldn't speak English. But when I threatened to call the police they shouted 'scrap metal' and ran off.
"The police came quite quickly and said it had been happening all over the place.
"It's really disconcerting. The public need to know about it. If these criminals are happy to go through people's front gardens then it could easily be someone's back garden or roof next."
And to her astonishment Ms O'Hara saw a different duo - a man and a woman - combing bins and skips in her neighbourhood yet again several days later.
A spokesman for Waltham Forest Police said: "officers from William Morris Safer Neighbourhoods Team (SNT) attended Fleeming Road to reports of two men wearing high visibility jackets going through residential bins looking for scrap metal.
"Officers arrived on scene however the two men could not be located following a search of the area.
"We have conducted a search of our systems and can find three similar reports in July 2012 where residents have called police due to them being concerned about someone searching through their bins.
"Residents are advised to report any suspicious activity to police. In an emergency always dial 999."
No arrests have been made.
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