Organised crime gangs are driving a huge surge in vehicle thefts by stealing luxury family cars to order from suburban streets and shipping them across the globe.
Leading vehicle theft experts have warned how Britain’s love for high-spec cars could be fuelling the epidemic as ruthless crime bosses know there are ‘rich pickings to be had’ in the UK.
In plots which echo the film Gone in Sixty Seconds, where a gang target luxury cars, crime lords are ordering their henchmen to prowl the streets for motors before pouncing in the middle of the night while families are sleeping.
Mother-of-two Sarah has told MailOnline how her £35,000 Toyota RAV4 was stolen during a 4am raid on a suburban street in south east London. The family car was later seized in a shipping container – moments before it was about to leave the country.
Police forces have revealed how criminals are packing several vehicles into individual shipping containers and hiding high-end cars such as Range Rovers behind mattresses and sofas to avoid being caught.
Many vehicles are snatched and shipped out of the country before the owners even wake up, with Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East common final destinations.
Since the war in Ukraine, Russia has also been flooded with Western cars as the country battles with strict sanctions.
Mike Briggs, an insurance industry veteran who is now UK executive director of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI), told MailOnline: ‘The organised crime gangs are pushing ahead here in the UK. Not just here in the UK, it’s now a global phenomena.
‘Everything is being shipped wherever money can be made or the vehicles can be exchanged for drugs, weapons or used in human trafficking and things of that nature.
‘It’s really increased and the more we get into this century, the bigger the change to organised crime and the more developed they’re becoming.’
Mr Briggs said that every country is being targeted by crime bosses, but he added: ‘The thing about vehicles in the UK, we always want the highest spec here and we tend to get that high spec.
‘If you bought a Mercedes in Germany itself, it would not be the same spec as the one here in the UK. We’d have the higher spec, so it’s more valuable.
‘Organised crime seems to know this as well. They do their homework and so there’s rich pickings to be had.’
Among those to have been targeted is 37-year-old architect Sarah who was staying with her husband and two children at her father-in-law’s house in Lewisham, when their Toyota RAV4 was nicked while they were asleep.
Sarah immediately reported the theft after discovering the car, filled with the couple’s expensive belongings, had been stolen when she went to grab a pushchair from the boot in the morning.
Weeks later, Sarah was informed that the thugs had raced across to an east London dockland in the middle of the night, where it was seized by police before it could be exported to Eastern Europe or Africa by a criminal enterprise.
She told MailOnline: ‘I was fuming that someone had the gall to steal my car in the middle of the night.
‘It really makes you feel violated, because you pay for a car with money that you’ve earned and worked hard for.’
She added: ‘We’re really at a loss through no fault of our own… the whole thing was infuriating.’
To make matters worse, Sarah’s insurance is set to soar astronomically next year – while the insurance firm pockets the value of her Toyota Rav4 which she was told is still in ‘perfect condition’.
Sarah explained: ‘What’s even more infuriating is that the insurance company are going to auction off our car so they make back the money. There’s no damage that’s been done to the car, it’s still functional.
‘They’ve obviously stolen it to try and take it abroad, then got caught in the act, and now the insurance company are going to auction off our car and our insurance premiums next year are going to go through the roof because there’s no one to process the claim against.’
Sarah, who caught her car being stolen via a neighbour’s Ring doorbell, said she was ‘gutted’ to lose the vehicle and also the belongings that were in there.
‘They’d taken everything that was inside the car so we lost a pushchair, two children’s car seats and the car seat bases, travel cot, a swimming bag, scooter, two pairs of sunglasses.
‘We see them fiddling around with the car, and then after about 20 minutes the doors pop open, and they jump in and and drive it off.’
Mr Briggs, who also owns Vehicle Security Solutions Consultant (VSST), said it was ‘very difficult for police and law enforcement’ to crack down on this theft because of the more developed equipment being used.
He explained: ‘Some of the equipment that’s being used doesn’t look like theft equipment. The little GameBoy devices that can be switched and programmed over to actually being used for theft of vehicles.
‘I would say that more enforcement has really got its work cut out.’
Mr Briggs said that Russia has become a major target for criminals because of the sanctions imposed as a result of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
‘You will see vehicles that look like they’re kind of semi-legitimately being shipped but they are probably not being legitimately shipped anywhere.
‘They are just organised crime gangs able to beat the system using people in high power places to actually get around law enforcement.
‘There is a huge amount of things going on, the war in Ukraine and the sanctions with Russia, t hey just look for another way around things.
‘The last time I was in in Russia, quite a few of their cars were Western type vehicles.
‘Where do they get the parts now to keep those vehicles going? If organised crime gangs can get around it and and supply those parts, then they will.
‘It’s not just vehicles going out to Africa openings anymore. It’s vehicles going to Russia. Wherever they can get vehicles, it’s cash at the end of the day. And instead of shipping cash, they would just ship a vehicle.’
Mr Briggs has been working to ‘put a dent’ in vehicle theft gangs through encouraging motorists to use anti-theft devices such as ghost immobilisers – which serve to protect keys, combat key cloning, hacking or keyless entry.
British police forces are desperately trying to crack down on global car theft and just last month stolen cars worth £500,000 were found loaded into two containers ready to be shipped abroad at Tilbury Port, Essex.
Eight vehicles, including Toyotas and Ranger Rovers were found stuffed into the back of two containers, hidden behind mattresses and sofas.
Essex has become a hotspot for organised gangs to target for shipping their stolen cars.
Last week, Essex Police also raided a shipping container at London Gateway Port in Stanford-le-Hope, which was due to go to West Africa.
Inside, they found two stolen Range Rovers and a Toyota Land Cruiser worth £83,000 in total.
Police also found other cars and parts there which were worth a total estimate of £216,000. This raid was just on one day.
During the week of September 16, 316 stolen vehicles were recovered in the UK, with a value of more than £4million and 180 arrests were made.
Essex Police Detective Inspector Brian Palombella said: ‘We are determined to root them out of Essex, making it hostile for criminals and to protect our residents and businesses as vehicle theft is not a victimless crime.’
