Police have recovered vehicles and car parts worth a combined £3.4 million during a major crackdown on organised vehicle crime and illegal chop shops.
Operation Bumblebee, led by the national intelligence unit Opal and funded by the Home Office, saw 12 police forces work with partners including vehicle recovery and tracking companies to target criminals involved in vehicle theft and dismantling operations.
During the three-month operation, which ran from January to March, almost 100 warrants were carried out, 214 arrests were made and 10 chop shops were identified and dismantled.
Police recovered vehicles worth £1.9m, car parts worth £1.5m, £20,000 in cryptocurrency and more than £8,000 in cash.
Chop shops targeted
Officers also seized signal jammers, key scanners, cloned plates, engine cranes and other tools and technology used to steal and dismantle vehicles.
Weapons including swords, knives, crowbars and an axe were also recovered, along with quantities of Class A and B drugs.
Around 115,000 vehicles were stolen in the UK last year, with many taken in minutes using devices such as signal jammers and key scanners.
Police said many stolen vehicles end up in chop shops because of rising global demand for parts, which are harder to trace than complete vehicles and easier to export.
The latest clampdown followed a previous intensification period last year involving 37 police forces and around 40 partner agencies.
Parts demand rising
Detective chief inspector Kate Brummell, head of operations at Opal, said stronger collaboration between police, vehicle manufacturers and businesses was helping to tackle the changing nature of vehicle crime.
She said: “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.”
DCI Brummell added: “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.”
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