Huge haul recovered in vehicle crime clampdown

• Vehicles worth £1.9m
• Car parts worth £1.5m
• £20k cryptocurrency
• £8k+ cash
• Signal jammers, key scanners, cloned plates and engine cranes

These are just some of the items recovered over a three-month period by police and partners targeting the lucrative and illegal chop-shop trade.

Led by our national intelligence unit at Opal and funded by the Home Office, Operation Bumblebee saw 12 forces working alongside partners - including private companies specialising in vehicle recovery and tracking - to clamp down on organised criminals who commit vehicle crime as part of largescale international operations.

Around 115,000 vehicles were stolen in the UK last year – often in minutes thanks to devices such as signal jammers and key scanners - with many of those ending up in so-called chop shops due to the growing international demand for parts. 

During the latest operation, which ran from January to March, almost 100 warrants were carried out with 214 arrests made and 10 ‘chop shops’ identified and dismantled.

In addition to the haul of vehicles, car parts, and tools and tech to enable the thefts, officers also seized weapons including swords, knives, crowbars and an axe. Quantities of Class A and B drugs were also recovered.

The clampdown followed on from a similar intensification period last year, which involved 37 forces and some 40 partner agencies.

While acknowledging the scale of the problem, Detective Chief Inspector Kate Brummell, head of operations at Opal, said the improved partnership between policing, vehicle manufacturers and private firms, is having a real and positive impact.

“There’s no denying that the nature of car crime has changed in recent years. It’s now much less about opportunistic theft and instead is far more likely to be linked to organised crime and other types of offending.

“We know that the vehicles are being taken away and swapped for drugs, even firearms in some cases, and the types of things seized when we take enforcement action just demonstrates the scale of that poly-criminality.

“The demand for parts is really high at the moment, both in the UK and overseas. It’s far more difficult to trace individual parts than it is an entire car, and it’s also far easier to export parts, which is why we’re seeing an increasing number of ‘chop-shops’ popping up.

"Data shows that, last year, the parts were shipped to countries including the UAE, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cyprus, and Nigeria.

“Thanks to ever-evolving tech, criminals are continuously finding to new ways to try and stay a step ahead of law enforcement, but our partnership approach, where we’re able to share intelligence and expertise – and importantly do so at pace - is having a real impact.

“We’ve shut down numerous illegal operations, seized huge amounts of ill-gotten gains as well as devices used to enable this type of criminality.

“And these operations are not a one-off. Forces are working to tackle vehicle crime on a daily basis and more of these intensification periods are planned for this year and beyond, so I hope this sends a strong message to those criminals involved that it’s only a matter of time until we’re raiding their operations and bringing them to justice.”