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A corrupt police officer helped an organised crime gang steal from their rivals in a Line of Duty-style multimillion-pound plot, a court heard.
Kashif Mahmood, 31, used his police car to stop vehicles he knew were carrying drug cash after being tipped off by the group.
Accompanied on two occasions by Romanian bodybuilder Ioan Gherghel, 34, who posed as his police partner, they would confiscate the money.
Mahmood, a Metropolitan Police constable, regularly jetted to Dubai and bought designer watches.
The force's anti-corruption unit began investigating him last year after French authorities infiltrated an encrypted phone network used by the gang, Southwark Crown Court heard.
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The messages showed on one occasion Mahmood seized £850,000 using the ploy.
He also misused police computers to gather intelligence on behalf of his criminal associates.
Peter Ratliff, prosecuting, said: 'Kashif Mahmood was at the heart of the most audacious aspect of the organised crime group's criminal conduct.'
The court heard he 'would take marked and unmarked police vehicles, and, dressed in his police uniform, travel to locations where the organised crime group were engaged in or aware of the transfer of significant quantities of criminal cash - which was either to be laundered or reflected payment for wholesale quantities of drugs'.
Mahmood, of Harlow, Essex, seized cash from the unsuspecting criminals 'under the pretext of lawful exercise of his powers as a police officer', said Mr Ratliff. He admits acquiring criminal property and misconduct in a public office.
While he was not paid a share of the cash seized, he was 'rewarded for his conduct', the court heard.
The keen bodybuilder was dismissed from the Met last year.
Ilford-based gangster twins Shabaz Khan, 32, and Shazad Khan, 32, and their brother Moshin Khan, 35, admit supplying class A drugs and conspiracy to acquire criminal property.
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Mr Ratliff said the brothers ran a 'highly lucrative organised crime group' while Moshin's partner, Maria Shah, 34, gave 'material support'.
Mahmood was working at the Emergency Response Team at Stoke Newington police station at the time of the plot between November 2019 and July 2020.
He met the Khan brothers for a 'debriefing' after their arrest and interview, the court heard.
Mahmood was dismissed without notice from the Met following a disciplinary hearing last year.
The officer had already survived a misconduct hearing after assaulting a man at a police cordon in Lower Clapton when he was based at Stoke Newington Police Station in May 2017.
Mahmood was sentenced to 200 hours community service at Hendon Magistrates' Courti the following year and allowed to remain an officer.
In 2014 he was commended for bravery by his borough commander.
Shah admitted conspiracy to supply a class A drug and conspiracy to acquire criminal property.
Gherghel admitted conspiracy to acquire criminal property. The six are due to be sentenced today.
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