pmcimagazine.com
TRAINING:
CROPS LEVEL 4 URBAN
SURVEILLANCE COURSE
It’s 2300hrs on an overcast Saturday night in September, and the students on the CROPS Level
4 Urban Surveillance Operators Course are deployed onto the ground to conduct a live technical
tracker placement, and their target vehicle is parked in a semi-rural location. The students move their
overwatch team into an outer cordon position, with a QRF vehicle ready in case it all goes wrong.
T
he deployment pair conduct their final
communications check before stepping off,
the plan to insert across the fields towards
the gable end of the targets property,
using the tall hedge line to conceal their
movements, the Number 2 continually
scanning the target area with NVG’s ensuring
no movement is seen; as they reach the
property boundaries they roll down their
balaclavas, don their black latex gloves and
boot covers before going on plot to execute
their mission.
Minutes later, the code word is heard over the net indicating
the placement has been a success, and that phase two of the
surveillance mission is now set for tomorrow morning...
Commercial surveillance is one of the largest growing
industries both in the United Kingdom (and indeed worldwide),
and is been conducted by hundreds of individual’s at all
different levels across the country. PMCI have been closely
following the company known as ‘CROPS’ as they progress
within this industry and more so their delivery of intense
training packages, this small but highly professional company
are taking covert commercial surveillance to another level!
Having spoken to Ben, the “top man”, in person, PMCI
discovered a whole lot more about their set-up.
4
PMCI: So Ben, tell our readers more about your Urban
Surveillance Course, where it started, and what makes it
different to all the others?
CROPS: Before we start, let me make it known that conducting
surveillance alone is never ideal, we do not condone it, and
should always where possible be deterred. However, in the
commercial arena this practise is 9 out of 10 times the norm,
and takes place far too often. It’s our role to make sure students
leaving CROPS are competent lone operators.
Having taken our time, and with our real life surveillance
experiences, we have been able to develop an Urban
Surveillance Operators Course like no other on today’s market.
This refreshed course is well overdue, giving the current
syllabus taught by the old and bold providers a good kick up
the ass.
We pride ourselves on being the ‘new generation’ of
surveillance training provider who still, unlike many, conduct
over 250hrs of live surveillance tasking’s each and every month.
It’s these current and every day experiences we encounter on
the live surveillance that we filter back into our courses.
Our instructors come from military and police surveillance
backgrounds; this gives them a good grounding in the
commercial arena. However, our course like previously
mentioned is very different from others. We haven’t done what
others have, and ripped off the old ‘Type W’ course delivered to
operators working in Northern Ireland, our course concentrates
on the ‘commercial tactics’ of working in pairs and alone.