Car crime unit busts 'chop shops' to recover Rolls Royces, Ferraris and Bentleys worth £12million
A police hit squad dedicated to fighting car crime has recovered £1 million worth of cars and parts in the last week alone.
Essex Police said their Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit had tracked down numerous high-end cars including a Rolls Royce, a Bentley Bentayga, several Range Rovers and BMWs.
The force said it had recovered both complete vehicles and others which had been broken down in so-called "chop shops".
In recent months the team has have located and recovered a range of Ferraris and Aston Martins.
One Rolls Royce Cullinan recovered during recent operations was worth more than £360,000 alone.
The team has discovered 15 "chop shops" this year and intercepted nearly 50 shipping containers full of stolen cars and parts on their way out of the country.
The team, consisting of PC Paul Gerrish and PC Phil Pentelow, supported by Police Staff Hannah Gerrish, will examine the vehicles and use the intelligence gathered to hunt down other missing cars.
The seizures take the unit’s total value of vehicles recovered throughout 2023 to £12 million already.
PC Paul Gerrish said: “We know car-owners across Essex rightly want to know and understand what their police force is doing about vehicle theft.
“The answer is: ‘The best we can with the resources we have available’.
"Every year, we track down more stolen vehicles and as we do, we build up a bigger and better intelligence picture."
PC Gerrish said the unit was dedicated to disrupting organised criminal gangs and aimed to make Essex a hostile county for car thieves to operate in.
“Our work stretches beyond recovering individual stolen cars and encompasses the wider network of criminality behind each theft.”
The Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit recovered or identified a record 626 stolen vehicles or parts of stolen vehicles in 2022 – a 30% increase on 2021.
Once a car is taken, thieves may look to quickly sell it on – even for way under the market value – strip it for parts, or ship either the whole car or parts of the car to areas including the Middle East and Africa.
There, the vehicles can be sold for two or three times more than they would cost in the UK and the parts market is vast in these distant countries.
Thieves or handlers of the stolen vehicles may also obtain false or cloned identities, then sell the vehicles on to unsuspecting members of the public in the UK or distribute them to other criminals.
Last month, three men were arrested as part of an investigation into the theft of £640,000 worth of stolen vehicles following the team's work.
The operation, which was intelligence-led, saw the stolen vehicle intelligence unit, the operational support group and the dog section attended a unit in Charfleets Industrial Estate, off Shannon Way, Canvey on Wednesday 24 May.
During a search of the unit, officers found evidence and items of significance to the investigation, including vehicles which had been reported as stolen from London, Surrey, Thames Valley and Essex.
Three men all aged in their 20s were arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods.
They have been released on conditional bail until August while investigations continue.
PC Pentelow added: “Our work doesn’t just encompass the recovery of high-end cars.
"Our dismantling of chop shops and our intelligence led-work takes into consideration vehicles of all values and types."
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