A major crackdown on travelling bank robbers has been launched by detectives in Lancashire. Dubbed Operation Guard, it follows a spate of robberies over the past week in Carnforth, Darwen and Ecclestone.
Officers using Automatic Number Plate Recognition will be deployed in areas known to be used by travelling criminals and on the motorway network.
The force says it believes robberies in the past week were carried out by criminals from outside the county.
The south of the county will come under special focus and extra officers will be drafted in that area.
The number plate recognition system works by scanning passing vehicle registrations and checking them against information stored in a number of databases.