Riverina Police District Inspector Adrian Telfer said Operation Saber conducted on Friday evening targeted hotspots throughout Wagga recently affected by property crime.

"Often they are in uniform but on Friday night they jumped into some plain clothes and were tasked with getting out there and trying to deal with our property crime issues in this town," he said.

"During Friday night our police spoke to 42 people and undertook 42 person searches and we also conducted 11 vehicle searches,"

"We found a number of items which are of concern to police, a couple of knives were located on people, a tomahawk, a flip knife and these are all offences to carry in public."

The operation utilised resources from Wagga General Duties, Region Enforcement Squad, and the Dog Unit and some of the items were found at Blakemore Street Ashmont, Ashmont Avenue and Tobruk Street and Beckwith Street and The Eslplenade in Central.

"They worked until the early hours of Saturday morning," Inspector Telfer said.

"A lot of police were on foot around Ashmont, Tolland, Turvey Park, Mount Austin and also throughout the CBD.

"We spoke to a number of people and not everyone was searched, but people we found wandering the streets after midnight were stopped and spoken to.

"Using our legislation and tools that we are given by the state government on 42 occasions police found it necessary to search these people and as you can see we found some results."

Inspector Telfer said police are seeing a downward trend in crime throughout Wagga, but police are still working hard.

"We are doing our best to really achieve that zero property crime," he said.

"Whilst it's probably never going to be achieved anywhere in the state we certainly work towards that.

"That's why we conduct these operations to get the police out and making sure anyone wandering the streets or found on bikes or vehicles that we are speaking to them."

During the operation 12 officers conducted searches of 42 people, locating a tomahawk, flick knife, extendable baton, laser pointer and three knives on separate individuals. Officers made four drug detections and arrested two people on outstanding warrants.

Two drink driving offences were recorded as well as one drug driving offence.

"It was a really positive result for us," Inspector Telfer said.

"We have charged 12 people on Friday night with various offences.

"It is really good that we found these items and that they are off the street and we are able to make some allegations before the court."

Inspector Telfer said they are already planning a similar operation.

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