Eventually, Mr. DeGrace lived on the street, bartering for crack by holding the drugs so the dealer could avoid arrest if the police swooped in.

The fragments of conversation the men picked up, sitting in a car nearby, before the police swooped down, were bracingly banal.

Raiding police had swooped in and carried out their prey; all traces of that episode had passed.

The South African Defence Force and police swooped on the station.

Ms. Cotton now wonders if they were set up, if the truck was left as bait for the protesters - because twice that night, the police swooped down and surprised them.

On television, Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of Taipei ordered everyone not at home when the police swooped in to come back, but some fled.

Armed police swooped on a flat in Walford Road, Stoke Newington, east London, after a tip-off.

But when they came back for $60,000 more on Wednesday, the police swooped in and arrested them.

The police swooped, so the story went, as the gang headed for the home of a 77-year-old retiree and his wife - the next victims.

The men, aged 22 and 35, were arrested after police swooped at addresses at Kidderminster and Stourport-on-Severn.