Car thieves with a taste for luxury

Many luxury cars are stolen to order in London each year

The gang of car thieves jailed for "ringing" a string of luxury cars from London went to great lengths to get their hands on the valuable vehicles.

In fact, their operation at times resembled the plot of a Hollywood crime thriller.

The gang patrolled rich areas of London such as Kensington and Chelsea looking for cars on their "want list", Det Con Ian Slaney of the Metropolitan Police Stolen Vehicles Unit told BBC London.

"They'd take a note of vehicles on their phones, and then counterfeit documents and passports, purporting to be the owners of the vehicles."

The gang would then target car dealerships in Europe, where they would say they had lost the keys to the car.

For a few hundred euros, dealers would provide them with a spare set of keys, thinking they were the legitimate owners.

"Back in England, they would get into the car with the spare set of keys, and drive away," said Det Con Slaney.

False numbers

Southwark Crown Court heard during the case that it was the first time thieves had been caught getting keys from dealerships.

The stolen cars were then given a false Vehicle Identification Number (VIN).

These numbers are usually stamped on a riveted plate in the bonnet and sometimes several other parts of the car, including the window sill.

The cars would then be exported to countries such as the United Arab Emirates.

"They were so good at what they do. It's only because we knew what we were looking for that we found out they were stolen vehicles," Mr Slaney said.

The cars stolen included a McLaren SLR

Hameed Nawaz, of Luton, forged documents including bank statements, utility bills, vehicle insurance and passports as part of the scam.

A search of gang leader Imran Ganchi's Ilford home found a haul of forged logbooks, fake vehicle ID stickers, number plate making machines, hundreds of blank number plates and eight stolen British passports.

The forgeries were of a "high quality", the court heard.

Tell-tale damage

Paul Watters of the AA said many car ringing gangs were professional criminal networks, increasingly reliant on skilled forgers to help stolen cars "disappear".

He said replacing the VIN was difficult and good forgers had to be adept at replacing these without leave tell-tale signs of damage, such as scratches on the bodywork.

"It's not that easy frankly, especially if a car buyer gets a proper inspection of the engine. Normally the people who do inspections will flag up a VIN that looks like it's been tampered with."

That is why, Mr Watters said, so many cars are being shipped abroad, to countries in eastern Europe, Africa or the Middle East.

"Often, people there are not very concerned about the history of a vehicle. It's that it's in their possession and what it is [a luxury car] that's important, and not how it's come by."