A crack police unit has recovered £1million worth of stolen supercars including a Rolls Royce in just a week. Essex Police said its Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit identified a haul of stolen cars and the remains of other cars known to be stolen.
In one of the unit's "most successful weeks,” they recovered a Rolls Royce and a Bentley Bentayga, alongside 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 they have also located and recovered a range of Ferraris and Aston Martins, and a Rolls Royce Cullinan 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 force said the latest seizures, last week, take the unit’s total value of vehicles recovered in 2023 to £12million.
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. Our work stretches beyond recovering individual stolen cars and encompasses the wider network of criminality behind each theft.”
Once a car is taken thieves may look to quickly sell it on – even for a sum well below market value. They'll aim to either strip it for parts or ship the whole 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. Last year, the unit recovered or identified a record 626 stolen vehicles or parts of stolen vehicles – a 30% increase on 2021.
