How criminals transport luxury cars to Russia
Western sanctions fuel the black market in highend vehicles for Putin’s regime, writes
Upon first inspection, the red shipping container sitting in an Essex storage site would have looked unremarkable but the police officers who opened it up knew better.
Acting on a tip, they emptied out stacks of bicycles and white goods to reveal the real, hidden cargo: Three stolen Range Rovers, wrapped up in mattresses and rugs, worth a combined £170,000.
More have followed since that discovery in June 2022 and the tempo is increasing. Other discoveries include: Bentley, Audi and Toyota cars worth £250,000 sandwiched into a container together; a £300,000 Rolls-Royce Dawn, nestled among the remains of 13 other chopped up cars; and high-end Lexus saloons stacked like cards on top of one another.
Last year, Essex Police’s stolen vehicle intelligence unit intercepted more than 60 containers like this before they were exported, carrying 240 cars worth around £13m.
They are almost always disguised under false papers and, usually, headed for destinations in the Middle East, Africa or Asia, fuelling a lucrative trade in luxury cars and parts that organised criminals are only too pleased to facilitate.
Why the recent upsurge? At least part of the answer is thought to lie in the conflict raging 1,300 miles away in Ukraine, which has triggered a string of Western sanctions against Russia.
These sanctions aim to not only hurt the Russian economy but also deprive President Vladimir Putin’s cronies of the Western luxuries they enjoy so much, not least the expensive cars they drive around Moscow. It is forcing them to pay more for both their vehicles and the parts to maintain them, which they must now get through more complex and riskier means. One way to avoid these sanctions is by simply shipping vehicles to neighbouring ex-Soviet countries and then sending them on to Russia, according to reports.
However, the crackdown is also thought to be fuelling a black market that has prompted gangs to employ blunter tactics: the theft of vehicles from British streets so they can be transported whole or in chopped-up form to Russia via intermediate destinations.
“The sanctions are driving the need for cars and car parts in Russia very hard, and that desperation is part of the reason we are seeing more vehicles going out via the Middle East,” says Mike Briggs, an insurance industry veteran and UK president of the International Association of Auto
Theft Investigators.
“It’s a real problem for them. The black market there has always been rife, but now it is getting bigger because of the sanctions. In fact, being able to still get luxury cars even now is actually likely to improve your status within Russia.”
There was a 48pc increase in vehicle thefts in the year to the end of September 2023, according to the Crime Survey of England and Wales, up from 72,000 to 106,000 incidents.
The way criminals typically steal cars goes something like this: a gang receives an order for a certain model of car or parts from an overseas buyer. They then go hunting for what they need in a big city. Once they have found their prey – with families and wealthy foreign drivers seen as soft targets – they break into the car, jam and remove any tracking devices they can find, and then park it up somewhere to wait and see whether anyone comes looking for it.
If no one comes, the gangs strip the car for parts or ready it for export via a container that is often loaded with other metal goods to disguise the real cargo and confuse x-ray scanners.
One reason why so many of the cars get through is that only a tiny proportion of containers are ever checked, says Iain McKinlay, chairman of the National Association of Stolen Vehicle Examiners.
By one industry estimate, fewer than five in 100,000 containers leaving Britain are searched. This is partly because of how disruptive searching more would be to trade. Nationally, there are thought to be just four full-time police officers dedicated to checking containers at Britain’s ports.
Thefts and recoveries also require cross-border cooperation by different police forces but typically only one will get the credit, creating few incentives for forces to go the extra mile.
“If you get caught with a £5,000 quantity of drugs, you’re going away to jail for a very long time,” former detective constable McKinlay says. “But if you get caught with a stolen vehicle worth £70,000, you’ll likely just get a slap on the wrist. So the gangs have identified there’s a lot of money to be made and that the risk, versus the reward, is really negligible.”
An industry insider says: “Vehicle crime is almost decriminalised in the UK now.” They point to figures showing less than 1pc of recorded thefts ever lead to charges. This is what visibly frustrated the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, Adrian Mardell, in February, when he complained that authorities were effectively giving gangs a free pass by failing to check enough of the shipping containers leaving Britain.
The West Midlands company is so concerned that it has started providing its own funding, understood to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, towards police intelligence work to help ensure the problem is tackled. However, as a shipping source points out, it would be impractical to check every container.
Instead, checks must be “intelligence-led” – based on tip-offs and police investigatory work – unless a new technology solution can be found that allows containers to be checked without being opened.
A spokesman for the British Association of Ports said: “This balances interests of legitimate trade and helps keep costs down for traders.”
One potential way to direct more resources could be to adopt a model used by some US states and Australia, where a small percentage of every car insurance policy goes towards funding anti-vehicle theft police operations, says McKinlay.
That might prove controversial if it pushes up policy costs. But it may prove cheaper in the long run if insurers don’t need to cover as many claims, McKinlay argues.
The cost of vehicle theft and theft from a vehicle hit record levels in 2023, with insurers paying out £669m for claims, according to the Association of British Insurers lobby group.
Ultimately, observers say more resources must be directed towards the problem to have an impact. In Canada, border authorities have done precisely this, setting up a new taskforce with money from insurers that recently targeted the Port of Montreal in a raid earlier this month.
Through searches of 390 shipping containers, they discovered 598 stolen cars worth a total of about £20m.
In the UK, a conference hosted by Toyota in Derby in July will bring together the Government, police, car makers and other industry figures to try to address the problem.
“We need more training, more police and more technology,” says Briggs. “This is just business for the gangs. And so long as there is a market and they can get these cars for nothing, why wouldn’t they do it?”
The Home Office said it was cracking down on the use of electronic devices used to steal vehicles by making it an offence in new laws working their way through Parliament.
A spokesman said forces were also getting more funding to hire front-line police officers, adding: “We have made great progress in tackling vehicle crime, which is down 39pc since 2010.”
‘There’s a lot of money to be made and the risk versus reward is really negligible’