Greater Manchester Police: Operation Rusk
“One of our investigators, who is a self-professed non-technical user, completed an entire case, including a total of 5832 hours of footage in 16 hours. This provided such overwhelming evidence that all defendants pleaded guilty.” Detective Inspector Alex Brown, Serious Organised Crime Group, Greater Manchester Police
Background
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) launched Operation Rusk in response to a rise in firearm-enabled and gang-related violence across Greater Manchester. Intelligence identified an Organised Crime Group (OCG) operating from the Moston and Miles Platting area, seeking to expand its drugs territory.
The investigation developed into a complex, cross-border operation involving GMP, Cumbria Constabulary, and Merseyside Police. GMP decided to use their Cloud-based enterprise AI video analytics system, Bedroq Seek – powered by BriefCam – to support the review and analysis of large volumes of CCTV footage. This enabled investigators to rapidly progress the case and secure significant custodial sentences.
DC David Clark from GMP’s Serious Organised Crime Group later presented the outcomes of Operation Rusk at Bedroq Sentinel 2025, Bedroq’s Police LFR and Video Analytics Working Group.
A Mountain of Video Footage
Operation Rusk required GMP to coordinate a multi-force investigation across Greater Manchester, Cumbria, and Merseyside, while maintaining evidential continuity and strict disclosure compliance.
Following the arrest of four OCG members in Cumbria in January 2025, GMP continued to target the leadership of the group and identified a suspected safehouse used for drug storage and criminal meetings. Investigators needed to establish a clear evidential link between the flat and drugs recovered in Carlisle.
The decision was made to recover all CCTV footage from 7 November 2024 to 26 January 2025. Footage from 16 cameras was secured, with three identified as evidentially relevant. This resulted in 5,832 hours of CCTV footage requiring review.
Manual review at this scale was not operationally viable. Large portions of footage were expected to show minimal activity, yet the review still needed to be thorough and defensible in court.
From CCTV to Evidence
GMP deployed Bedroq Seek to support the review and analysis of this CCTV footage. Not only does this solution enhance and expedite this process but it is intuitive and user-friendly.
All 5,832 hours of video were ingested and processed using advanced video analytics. Investigators adopted an intelligence-led approach, focusing initially on a critical 48-hour period when OCG members were suspected to have travelled to Cumbria.
Using Video Synopsis, filtering, and known-subject matching, days of footage were reduced to minutes. Identified subjects of interest allowed parameters to be applied consistently across additional camera views, accelerating analysis while maintaining evidential integrity.
Justice Served
Bedroq Seek enabled GMP to convert large volumes of CCTV footage into clear, court-ready evidence.
Relevant clips were extracted and shared with Cumbria Police in a structured sequence of events document used in the Crown Court. The remaining corridor footage was reviewed across an 81-day period, confirming that only known OCG members entered or exited the flat.
During the trial, a late defence challenge questioned the identification of three OCG members. As the footage had already been ingested into Seek and retained within the case management file, a further review was completed quickly, allowing the trial to proceed without adjournment.
All five defendants pleaded guilty prior to a jury being sworn, receiving custodial sentences totalling over 20 years.
Operational Impact
Operation Rusk shows how video analytics can deliver significant operational savings while strengthening evidential outcomes. Using Bedroq Seek, Greater Manchester Police processed 5,832 hours of CCTV footage in approximately 171 hours, reducing what would have been months of manual review to around one working week.
Only 16 hours were required to review material and produce evidence, with 22 key clips extracted from an initial 461 clips across the full conspiracy period. This approach minimised officer time spent reviewing low-activity footage, supported disclosure compliance, and ensured a transparent, defensible process.
Bedroq Seek proved straightforward for officers to use, enabling rapid adoption without specialist technical skills. This allowed investigators to respond quickly to late-stage defence challenges and maintain momentum through to guilty pleas.
By working closely with GMP and Cumbria Constabulary, Bedroq helped convert large volumes of CCTV into clear, court-ready evidence – saving time, reducing investigative burden, and making more effective use of policing resources. The outcome was a successful prosecution, with all five defendants pleading guilty and custodial sentences totalling over 20 years.
