After spending millions to station officers for over 1,200 days on the off-chance that Julian Assange stepped out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, the Metropolitan Police Service announced Monday it would remove its constant overt presence outside the building. The WikiLeaks founder is still being investigated by Swedish authorities for an alleged rape in the Nordic country. The statute of limitations on other alleged sex crimes expired in August 2015, but the rape accusation can stand until 2020.

Assange has remained inside the embassy for over three years. Should he leave and be arrested, he would be extradited to Sweden and possibly onto the United States where he almost certainly faces pending criminal charges related to WikiLeaks. For now, Assange has not been formally charged with a crime. According to Assange's own September 2013 affidavit, he said that the women he slept with in Stockholm years ago specifically said they were not accusing him of rape and that police "made up the charges."

Despite today's announcement, Scotland Yard warned it isn't giving up.

"The operation to arrest Julian Assange does however continue and should he leave the Embassy the MPS will make every effort to arrest him," a Scotland Yard representative wrote in a Monday statement. "However it is no longer proportionate to commit officers to a permanent presence. The MPS will not discuss what form its continuing operation will take or the resourcing implications surrounding it."

In 2013, the Met said that it was spending £10,982 ($16,384) per day - or $11 per minute - to maintain a 24 hour per day, 7 day per week presence in front of the embassy. Ars reported in February 2015 that Scotland Yard spent at least $15.6 million between June 2012 and October 2014. Assuming the same rate of spending, British taxpayers have spent, in total, more than an estimated $21 million paying for London cops to wait out Assange.