A specialist police unit recovered £1 million of stolen cars and parts in “one of its most successful weeks”, including a Rolls Royce and a Bentley.
Essex Police said its Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit identified a haul of complete stolen vehicles and the remains of others known to be stolen, among them several Range Rovers and BMWs.
In recent months, they have also located and recovered a range of Ferraris and Aston Martins, and a Rolls Royce Cullinan that was worth more than £360,000 alone.
The force said the latest seizures, last week, take the unit’s total value of vehicles recovered in 2023 to £12 million, and officers will examine the vehicles for intelligence to hunt down other missing cars.
The 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, police said.
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.
Pc Paul Gerrish said: “Every year, we track down more stolen vehicles and as we do, we build up a bigger and better intelligence picture.
“Our work is dedicated to the disruption of organised criminal gangs and we make sure car thieves are never comfortable in Essex.
“We aim to make this 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 team has dismantled 15 “chop shops” – the places stolen cars are stripped of their parts – so far this year.
This year they have also intercepted almost 50 shipping containers, all full of stolen vehicles and parts, destined to leave the country.
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 officers attend a unit at an industrial estate in Canvey Island on May 24.
During a search of the unit, officers found 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 and bailed until August while an investigation continues.
