Operation Surge saturates Hunter Basin and arrests 11 people, NSW

Police districts within the Hunter Basin have once again joined together to proactively target offenders during a high-visibility operation at the weekend.

Between 4pm on Saturday 1 February and 4am on Sunday 2 February 2020, more than 100 officers from the four Hunter Basin police districts – Newcastle City, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens-Hunter and Hunter Valley, with assistance from Traffic & Highway Patrol, the Police Dog Unit, Strike Force Utah, PolAir and Police Transport Command – were deployed to several suburbs across the region in a high-saturation operation, capturing areas such as Newcastle, Maitland, Raymond Terrace and Cessnock.

The aim of Operation Surge is to manoeuvre resources where they are needed in a fluid, reactive environment, with the assistance of real-time intelligence from a single control base.

Preliminary results from Operation Surge show:

  • 11 people arrested
  • 17 charges laid
  • 10 possess/supply drug
  • 145 RBT conducted
  • 4 PCA charges
  • 40 traffic infringements issued
  • 74 licensed premises checks
  • 11 juvenile cautions

Of note, a 20-year-old man was arrested at a licensed premises on Hunter Street, Newcastle West, after allegedly being in possession of 69 MDMA capsules. He was charged with supply prohibited drug and granted conditional bail to face Newcastle Local Court on Thursday 27 February 2020.

Operation Surge Commander, Superintendent Danny Sullivan APM said the second roll-out of Operation Surge was a great success, with officers able to respond in numbers across the wider community, regardless of their home police district.

“Operation Surge was created to merge police resources across several Hunter suburbs, being able to move freely and deploy to wherever the demand and need is at any given time.

“This operation allows police to engage with the public in highly visible areas and in vast numbers – reinforcing that the Hunter’s police are there to protect the community all day, every day.

“For the second deployment of Operation Surge, we wanted to focus on utilising the real-time intelligence from our analysts to target repeat offenders within each police district.

“Police will continue to put operations like ‘Surge’ into practice; those in the community who wish to cause trouble need to know we will be there, and we will be there in large numbers.

“The public should continue to feel confident that their local police are out in force, protecting their neighbourhoods and families,” Supt Sullivan said.

Operation Surge will be continually rolled-out through various deployments in 2020.

/Public Release. View in full here.