Over 300 stolen vehicles worth more than £2.6million were recovered, and eight chop shops dismantled, during a week-long nationwide clampdown on organised vehicle crime.
The third Operation Alliances, funded by the Home Office and led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, saw 32 police forces carry out intelligence-led enforcement activity to identify and disrupt organised gangs behind large-scale vehicle theft, often on a national and international scale.
Building on the success of previous Alliances intensification periods, the operation again brought together policing and partners, including the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership (NVCRP), coordination and intelligence development by Opal, policing’s national intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime, and the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS).
During the week of action (5-11 October), forces executed more than 100 warrants and conducted more than 280 stop searches, with more than 285 arrests made for vehicle crime-related offences including theft of and from vehicles, going equipped and burglary.
Arrests were also made for a wide range of other offending, including possession of drugs and weapons, violent disorder and attempting to leave the UK while subject to court proceedings.
More than 50 charges have already been brought in relation to those arrests, with further expected to follow.
Chop shops – illicit set-ups where stolen cars are stored, stripped of parts and trackers, or fitted with cloned plates – were located in London, South Wales, South Yorkshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands, with 18 of those arrested linked to chop shop activity.
More than 300 vehicle parts worth in excess of £100,000 were recovered, while large volumes of criminal equipment was also seized, including cloned plates, relay devices, key programmers, licence plate printers, signal jammers and a lock-picking kit. Also recovered was a handmade ignition bypass switch, a number of knives and machetes and drugs.
Family and high value cars were not the only vehicles seized – also recovered were a forklift truck, caravan and horsebox, all of which had been stolen. A stolen excavator which was about to be exported was also recovered.
At the ports, 1,090 vehicles were stopped and checked, with 13 vehicles seized and one arrest made.
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