PEOPLE selling stolen property in Chester, Ellesmere Port and Vale Royal could be outsmarted by a new police operation.

Cheshire Area Support Group (ASG) officers are taking to the road kitted out with hand held UV lamps to detect goods which are marked with Smart Water.

The team has a hit list of target premises across the county which includes indoor and open air markets, second hand goods showrooms, car boot sales and vehicle breakers.

Insp Richard Hill, who is heading up the operation, said: 'We are aware that stolen goods are exchanged at both events and premises. This work is aimed at identifying those items.

Once we have ascertained that an item is stolen, we can make significant progress in identifying and dealing with the people responsible for dis-honesty offences as we can make a start on finding out how an item came to be in a person's possession in the first place.

'The added bonus of course is that an item marked with Smart Water can easily be traced to its rightful owner.'

Smart Water is the latest in property marking technology.

Each container of solution, which is invisible to the naked eye when painted on, has its own unique code which is registered to a specific individual.

This means if a stolen item is found by police they can detect the code and find out who the owner is.

The ability to link the solution in this way is also making it vital when it comes to catching criminals as once an offender comes into contact with the spray, the police can easily test their clothes and skin to see if they have been at a specific crime scene.

'The detection of stolen goods is just one advantage of this work. I'm confident the visits to the events and premises we have identified will lead to improved working relations with stall holders, second hand goods deal-ers, stores workers - a whole range of people.

'Good relations are always a great starting point when it comes to sharing information between parties and I think as time goes by, the police and

the people they work with as part of this operation will learn a lot from each other about the stolen goods issue and the factors contributing to it,' said Insp Hill.

ASG officers will pass on all the information they uncover as part of the visits to Neighbourhood Policing Unit Community Action Team and Investigation Team officers for further investigation.

The checks conducted by the ASG team will be made randomly and will fit around the officers' other duties.

These include forced entry of premises and arrest of offenders during the execution of search warrants, crowd control and management of public disorder situations.