Commander Simon Foy, head of the homicide and serious crime command, who is leading the investigation, said he was considering asking other forces to provide detectives to help as the number of arrests continues to rise.
Foy has taken detectives off all other inquiries to concentrate on finding those who have been rioting. His team is trawling through CCTV images and a most wanted page shows images of scores of young men and women, some with their faces clearly visible, in an attempt to get the public to help identify looters.
In the last three days 525 people have been arrested across the capital. The youngest rioter, police said, was 11 and many of those arrested and charged are under 18.
Detectives from Trident are also investigating the fatal shooting of a 26-year-old man in a car in Croydon on Monday night in what officers believe was a fight between looters.
Sources said the man was in a group of people who travelled to Croydon as the rioting began. The group had an altercation with a separate gang of nine looters, according to a police source. The gangs jumped into three vehicles and there was a high-speed chase along Scarbrook Road over a flyover into Duppas Hill Road where the cars came to a halt and the victim was shot in the head.
Police found him still sitting in the car. He was taken to hospital and died on Tuesday. Two men were arrested at the scene on suspicion of handling stolen goods, and were released on police bail.
Foy's team was due to make its first arrests over the riots using leads provided by the CCTV pictures on Tuesday. "We promise a vigorous and rigorous pursuit," Foy said. "To those individuals who think that they have got away with it, my message is we will come and find you."
Some of the CCTV pictures are being circulated on Flickr. So far 99 individuals have been charged with offences including 63 counts of burglary, two assaults on police officers, three robberies, four counts of possession of offensive weapons and eight public order offences. The accused began appearing at Highbury Corner and Camberwell Green magistrates court on Tuesday afternoon.
The workload is mounting quickly. Detectives have been taken from antiterrorist inquiries and some from Operation Weeting, the phone-hacking inquiry, because of the scale of evidence that needs to be investigated.
The pressure is on the Yard to move people quickly through the system, such is the number of those arrested. The cells were to be cleared by Tuesday night to make room for an anticipated further round of arrests.
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