Police have arrested six people in connection with metal theft in Leicestershire.

The arrests took place on the first day of a campaign involving several police forces in the region.

Yesterday, three men aged 21, 23 and 30 were arrested near Birmingham after intelligence was passed from Lincolnshire to West Midlands Police about a suspicious Ford transit van.

The van was found to contain 1,000 metres of power cable suspected to have been stolen overnight in Leicestershire.

The men were arrested on suspicion of metal theft and are currently in custody in Leicestershire.

Police also stopped a van in Leicester yesterday afternoon which contained scrap metal and arrested three men, two from Leicestershire aged 26 and 28 and a 42-year-old from Newark on suspicion of theft of metal. They are all still in custody.

In North West Leicestershire three vans containing scrap metal were stopped as part of the operation.

Leicestershire police are working with Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Derbyshire forces to target scrap metal dealers to ensure they are not dealing in stolen metal.