Proudly posing with their stolen spoils, this bunch of thieves embody the greedy nature of looters who snatched whatever they could while ransacking England's streets.
Peeking from behind their obligatory hoods and scarves tied around their faces, their eyes defiantly stare at the camera with their hordes of looted goods.
One clutches a large flat-screen LCD television, with a row of new mobile phones neatly lied up on top of the box, while a pile of shoe boxes and video games litter the shabby room.
Laptops perched on their knees, another member of the group grips a baseball bat while a friend has a large heavy chain draped around his neck.
Posers: The disguised gang display their snatched goods in a shabby room
So proud: The quartet brazenly show off their piles of thieved goods
Police are using computerised facial imaging technology to identify and arrest rioters and looters who wreaked havoc across Britain’s major cities.
Specialist officers at Scotland Yard match images from CCTV and even high-powered cameras on helicopters with pictures stored in the computerised files of people who had been arrested or charged.
It is thought to be the first time the technology has been used in such volume.
Senior Metropolitan Police sources say that provided the pictures taken have sufficient pixels, they can be matched with those on file.
All photographs taken of suspects and those arrested at police stations are taken with the face looking forward on high-quality digital cameras. Using a sophisticated software system, experts in the Met’s Intelligence Bureau can then match them to high-resolution pictures sent in from the scenes of the riots.
Sophisticated: Experts are matching looters' pictures using a software system - and it even applies to high-resolution image sent in to police from the riot scene
A source said: ‘Today’s CCTV cameras are of high quality, so provided we have a full face image of the person from those pictures, the system will work.
‘Police helicopters capture very accurate images, too. You would be surprised what we can see.’
Commander Simon Foy, of the Met’s Specialist Crime Directorate, would not discuss details of the technology used to catch rioters. But he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We are using every means we can to identify the people who took part in the riots. There is no hiding place. It will take some time, but we will get them all.’
Incognito... but looters' facial featured are being matched to the police database
Mr Foy said some looters left the boxes that had contained stolen TVs and other electrical goods in skips near their homes.
Others had been arrested, he said, after firemen putting out blazes during the riots had looked into flats and houses and spotted stolen goods piled up inside.
Many of those arrested were identified from CCTV images in streets and shopping areas, combined with film taken on mobile phones by members of the public and police surveillance cameras.
More arrests are expected over the next few days as results come in from DNA and finger-printing tests at crime scenes.
The riots came as the prison population this week reached a record high. There are 85,324 prison inmates, with fewer than 2,000 places spare.
The Government insists there is capacity for anyone jailed in relation to the rioting and looting.
Meanwhile, acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Tim Godwin rejected claims at Prime Minister’s Questions that police had been ‘held back’ during the disturbances.
‘I heard those. There is no order ever given to hold back,’ said Mr Godwin, who promised that 3,000 rioters would be ‘put through the courts’.
The Government is to launch an independent study into the causes of the riots, it emerged last night.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: ‘We don’t need research to tell us that much of this was pure criminality, but the more we can learn the better.
‘In policy-making as in war, it is important to know your enemy.’
A TASTE FOR THE HIGH-LIFE: THE LOOTERS' TARGETS
Shops selling fashion sportswear, high-value electronic goods and mobile phones were among those targeted most often by the rioters.
Top of the list was JD Sports, 30 of whose 500 stores were looted. At least 40 people have been charged with looting or handling stolen goods from its stores with the total cost estimated at £10 million.
Currys was also a frequent target, with at least 22 people charged in connection with raids on its stores. Vodafone shops were hit at least 12 times and PC World and Argos on half-a-dozen occasions each.
At least three people have been accused of looting from Phones 4u and Comet, two from Matalan, six from Tesco Express and seven from Maplin.
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