Last week the Undercover Policing Inquiry revealed that, since at least the 1970s, anarchists have been infiltrating London Metropolitan Police.

An estimated 1,312 undercover anarchists were discovered within the Met’s ranks so far, with some still active. AFed, SolFed, Freedom Collective and The Wombles refused to disclose the names of infiltrators, instead providing the Inquiry with their numbers: ranging from ACAB0001 to ACAB1312. They have also refused to say how many are still active, or what is the purpose of the undercover operation. One member of Freedom Collective, who prefers to remain anonymous, said:

We will be issuing a statement at some point, but first we need to have a number of very long meetings and argue on Libcom. I guess we better start doing more illegal raves in order to gather funds we will likely need if the Met choses to take legal action against us. Also, for the record, there is no leader of this operation: it was purely self-organized.

Freedom News reached out to one of the police victims, who spent seven years partnered with the undercover anarchist, known under the number ACAB0420. He said:

My partner, who I knew as ‘PC Bulldock’, showed up at the New Scotland Yard in 2005. He was my partner until 2012, when he told me he will be moving to Northern Ireland due to family issues and promptly disappeared. For all these years, we’ve been patrolling London’s streets together: mostly fulfilling the police duty of harassing homeless people and racially profiling young black men for stop and search. Those were good days.

I thought ‘PC Bulldock’ was my friend, I trusted him. I even invited him to partake in a cover-up operation after we had a death in custody back in 2008. I’m destroyed by the recent discovery and I don’t think I will ever get over the trust issues it created. But, thinking about it now, we’ve always had suspicions regarding ‘PC Bulldock’: he didn’t drive, choosing to cycle everywhere instead. He also never had cash. I guess I was blind really.

Another undercover, known under the number ACAB0034, went so high up in the Met’s ranks that at some point he had become the editor of the police magazine “The Job”, where he was writing mostly virulent anti- anarchist pieces. He was working for “The Job” for at least four years. The Met is going through their archives now, hoping to figure out what his deployment was about.

The cops who remember ACAB0034 say that he was a spot-on editor, but was taking a lot of days off: mostly saying that he needs to move houses (that happened approx every three months), or ‘house-sit’. Occasionally, he would leave work early, claiming that he needs to rush, as “Waitrose will be closing their bins soon”. One of the undercover anarchists, speaking to Freedom News, said:

I was selected to join the Metropolitan Police in 1997 and I spent five years infiltrating them. The most difficult part of my job was to prove to my police colleagues that I’m as racist as they are. Another issue was to hide my veganism: that was a proper mission. I can’t even remember how many times I had to pretend I’m unwell in order to avoid eating a donut.

I also really regret being on the wrong side of the barricade during MayDay 2001. Eventually, my handlers canceled my deployment, claiming I have ‘gone native’: I took a particular liking in maintaining a clean-shaved look, and at some point I considered removing my tattoos. It went so bad that I even told someone to ‘get a proper job’, as if I was a real cop. It was scary to be honest and I’m glad it is over. Now, I’m trying to rebuild my life.

The most serious issue is whether the undercover anarchists engaged in intimate relationships with genuine police officers in order to gather information. This claim is strongly debunked by London anarchists, with one commenting: “We hate the Met, but that kind of practice would be disgraceful. When we say fuck the police, we mean it purely figuratively. Besides, that would be rape.”

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This article was Freedom’s 2018 April Fools.