Police poured out of red buses

The double-decker buses, windows blacked out, drew up at the stroke of 7.15pm. The doors swung open and dozens of police officers poured out and sprinted across the pavement into five shops. Inside startled drugs dealers tried to stuff rocks of crack cocaine into their pockets but within seconds hundreds of other officers had sealed off the street barring their escape.

Operation Sansom had begun, the latest and most ambitious attempt by the Met to rid London's streets of the drug that has led to gun wars.

This time more than 400 officers backed by 12 armed police sealed off West Green Road in south Tottenham, where drug dealers have for months operated with seeming impunity. Last night that impunity came to an end. After weeks of video and plain clothes surveillance Haringey police, backed by reinforcements from around London, closed the net.

Within moments of their surprise arrival officers were leading suspected drug dealers in handcuffs to waiting vans.

Inside Fresh Cuts Safe Quality Fish, Meat and Grocers, one of the shops suspected of being used by dealers to sell £20 rocks of crack, a dozen officers were carrying out a minute search. It was the same scene inside Double AA's barbers, Bully Kitchen Lick Restaurant, Phone Box Cheap Calls and Tawakul Internet Cafe. Outside cars were being examined by the light of powerful lamps erected on the road. And all the time children stared from upstairs windows at the men in blue.

Somalian shopkeeper Mohammed Abdi, 23, was preparing to lock up when the police moved in. "I saw lots of police running past. The raid is a good thing because this road is very risky," he said.

West Green Road is typical of this part of Tottenham - Victorian terraces packed with small Halal butchers, black music shops, hair salons and international telephone call outlets.

Scotland Yard was resolved to clear the dealers out but senior commanders - memories of the Broadwater Farm riots seared on their memory - remained sensitive to the potential for conflict. At a pre-operation briefing borough commander Steve James told his men and women: "This is a victory we can turn into defeat unless your standards are particularly high."

At the rendezvous point, a primary school half a mile from the target, officers donned full body armour before boarding the two chartered London buses and 60 police vans and carriers for the brief journey.

In the end, despite West Green Road being sealed off for several hours, the operation attracted only mild curiosity and carefully expressed support from local people. In fact the fight to reclaim West Green Road has only just begun. More than £30,000 of crime prevention measures are now to be put in place with the support of Haringey council, including extra patrols, improved street lighting and CCTV cameras.

"Tonight was the easy bit," said Chief Supt James. "Now we have to keep the area safe."