A joint police operation has dismantled a criminal gang that made millions of pounds from high value vehicle crime from victims across the whole of the UK.

John White, (23) was sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment at Preston Crown Court on Monday 10 May, 2010, following an investigation led by the Regional Intelligence Unit (RIU) into a car-cloning and vehicle-theft network.  White was the leader of the criminal network that was finally brought to justice through a joint campaign including Leicester, Lancashire and South Yorkshire Police forces. 

His partner in crime, Shane Deere, was sentenced on Friday 21 May at Doncaster Crown Court to serve 21 months imprisonment for eight counts of handling stolen goods.

It is estimated that high-value vehicle-theft, car-ringing and stolen and forged documentation costs vehicle owners more than £26 million a year.  In the past, the complexities of vehicles stolen in one part of the country and sold in another region have made this crime difficult to tackle.

Operation Vulcan was set up to track high-value vehicle-crime, not on a case-by-case basis, or by location, but as a crime type. 

Members of the RIU contacted Auto Trader and were surprised to learn of the lead the company was taking in creating a network of vehicle online sales outlets, to tackle suspicious transactions. The network included market leaders such as E-Bay, Piston Heads and Exchange & Mart.

Police in Doncaster picked up the investigation as the recovery of stolen vehicles within their area had then led to house searches, which in turn, revealed more victims of the stolen vehicle sell-on scam.  The RIU worked alongside Doncaster officers in tracing further victims of vehicle fraud and tried to find a link through other forces, where vehicles had been stolen and where they were later recovered.  Working with in-force scenes-of-crime officers, the RIU team went on a trail of discovery which eventually covered the whole of the country.

At this point, the Regional Intelligence Unit linked up with other agencies, such as the East Midlands Regional Intelligence Unit, ACPO Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (AVCIS), and in liaison with the DVLA. Through a shared intelligence structure and with information coming through from Lancashire, a series of offences were identified as committed by an offender known as ‘Doncaster John’.

Lancashire Police approached the RIU who were able to immediately identify the suspect as John White, whose name and many guises had cropped up with South Yorkshire Police.

The RIU continued its investigation and the team, together with a Detective Sergeant and five Detectives Constables, two from Doncaster Police, continued to gather evidence, from witnesses, ANPR and CCTV footage. When gathered together, the investigation revealed Mr White’s involvement to be much more integral to the vehicle crime ring than first suspected.  White was arrested during an early morning warrant that was executed at the address of his then girlfriend, Kimberly Jinks. 

Once arrested the teams were able to identify more offenders and executed further warrants.  A further six people were arrested and ten charges given ranging from the illegal use of bank cards, to falsifying addresses – their cases are pending. Twelve cars were recovered and returned to their original owners, or to the insurers if a claim had been paid out, including a Land Rover that was found on the drive at the time of White’s arrest.

Superintendent Wilkie, said: “This is a fantastic result and a great endorsement for partnership working.  The RIU was able to broker the relationship with Lancashire Police and the teams from South Yorkshire.  We were also able to pull in support and intelligence from police in Barnsley, Blackpool and Leicester.

“The gang had been able to operate under the radar by exploiting cross-border offences which were seen at a local level as single offences. By taking a strategic perspective, we were able to pull all of the disparate strands together and in doing so, a very clear pattern emerged, which pointed to John White as the key suspect, and we were able to help build a significant case.” 

Mr Wilkie is convinced that co-ordination and early buy-in from the relevant partners was crucial to building a case. The CPS in Lancashire was convinced by the quality of the evidence and scale of the criminal network to build a prosecution case. 

Support from the private sector, in particular Auto Trader, helped to bring the gang to justice.  Helena Fearon, Customer Security & Compliance Director, said:  “Auto Trader has led the way in working with Police Forces across the UK to stamp out trading stolen vehicles and other related crimes and fraud such as car cloning and odometer tampering.  Using a combination of state of the art software and our highly trained personnel, we were able to assist the Regional Intelligence Unit (RIU) in highlighting suspicious car adverts and uncovering this criminal gang.

“It is very important to us and to the hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers that use our service every year, to do so confident in the knowledge that we are proactively working with the police and other enforcement agencies to tackle the illegal trade in motor vehicles.  We are very pleased to have assisted the Regional Intelligence Unit, South Yorkshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire Police in this instance and look forward to continuing the relationship in the future.”