- Gang allegedly rang criminal enterprise that ‘sold 100 cars on the black market’
- They ‘used specialist software to steal keyless Range Rovers worth £60,000’
- Southwark Crown Court heard they also ‘burgled homes for car keys’
A ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ gang of hi-tech car thieves used sophisticated software to steal keyless £60,000 Range Rovers in a £2.5m crime spree, a court heard today.
Manjit Sandhu, 32, allegedly ran a criminal enterprise that targeted around 100 cars and sold them on the black market in the UK and overseas between March 1, 2015 and August 17, 2016.
Heena Bux, 21, identified cars to break into and arranged for Khuram Zaman, 19, Mohammed Islam, 20, and Geoffrey Cairns, 55, to do the ‘dirty work’ and drive away, it is claimed.
The gang bought specialist equipment used by locksmiths to bypass keyless cars’ security systems in seconds, it is said.
They also ‘burgled car keys from homes in east and west London’ and drove the owners’ vehicles away from their driveways ‘within minutes’, jurors were told.
Southwark Crown Court heard the vehicles were then fitted with false number plates and either sold in the UK or shipped overseas for sale on the black market.
Sandhu, Bux, Zaman, and Islam deny one count of conspiracy to commit burglary, one count of conspiracy to steal, and one count of conspiracy to convert criminal property.
Cairns admits one count of conspiracy to steal but denies the other two charges.
Jurors were told that Sufiyan Mahmood, 19, Faisal Khan, 23, and Humza Bhariwala, 23, have pleaded guilty to related offences including conspiracy to burgle and conspiracy to steal.
Prosecutor Jane Osborne said: ‘In this case the prosecution say that there are 122 offences which involved the theft or attempted theft of many vehicles that are worth a combined total of over £2.5million.’
She continued: ‘The first way in which they were being stolen was simply by breaking into the owner’s address, normally through a front door that wasn’t double-locked and simply taking the car keys from wherever that person may have left them overnight.’
The court heard the thieves would get in and out of the houses in ‘less than three minutes’.
Jurors heard that crooks purchased specialist devices normally reserved for devices to ‘circumvent the cars security services’.
Miss Osborne said: ‘In the wrong hands, such as the hands of these defendants, they allow them to simply start and drive away vehicles when they don’t have the actual key.’
She added: ‘In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing that entire process can take, really, seconds.’
Miss Osborne said one of the cars was found hidden among furniture in a shipping crate bound for Uganda, Africa.
She said: ‘There is some evidence that the vehicles being stolen were being shipped overseas.
‘One of the higher-value cars was recovered from a shipping crate in Felixstowe.
‘Those exporting the vehicle knew that it was stolen, it was on false plates at the time and it wasn’t listed in the shipping manifest.’
The defendants were arrested in August 2016 after an investigation by the police’s Organised Vehicle Crime Unit.
Miss Osborne said: ‘The cars that these defendants were dealing with were frequently worth, on the legitimate market, more than £30,000.
‘They often targeted Range Rovers and Land Rovers that were worth as much as £60,000 – they would still have yielded a significant amount even as stolen vehicles.
‘All of the money they got would have been profit.’
Cairns, of Romford, admits one count of conspiracy to steal but denies conspiracy to burgle and conspiracy to convert criminal property.
Islam, of Forest Gate, Zaman of Walthamstow, Bux, of Leytonstone, and Sandhu, of Hornchurch, deny one count of conspiracy to burgle, one count of conspiracy to steal, and one count of conspiracy to convert criminal property.
Bhariwala, of Wood Green, north London, has admitted one count of conspiracy to burgle.
Khan, of Manor Park, and Mahmood, of Forest Gate, east London, have admitted conspiracy to steal and conspiracy to burgle.
The trial continues.