West Midlands Police recover stolen top cars worth £2.5m

A special unit has been set up to tackle expensive car thefts in the region which has led to 103 people being arrested over the last nine months.

Thirty of them have been charged with crimes such as conspiracy to steal and some have already appeared in court and been jailed.

Meanwhile the number of top of the range motors being stolen in the region has been cut by almost a third since Operation Transmission was launched.

The nine-strong police unit was set up last October after 534 expensive cars, mainly BMWs and Audis, had been stolen in the West Midlands in nine months – the highest figure for any force outside the Metropolitan Police.

Most of the cars were being taken by using hi-tech gadgets available through the internet that could steal security data from a targeted car's on-board computer and programme it onto blank keys. A cloned key could then be used to start the engine.

At first the police operation focused on Dudley and Sandwell with a number of addresses raided in the area. Five people were charged and stolen BMWs worth £300,000 were recovered.

Investigations were then widened to the rest of the region following similar thefts.

Some of those arrested have been accused of breaking into houses to steal ignition keys for cars that are then stolen. Suspects have also been detained who are believed to have been handlers who received the stolen cars before either cutting them up for spares or passing them on to be shipped out

Detective Sergeant Glenn Marriott, who is in charge of Operation Transmission, said: "Our focused efforts to target this type of high-tech crime have gone really well."

Three men, including one from Coseley, were recently jailed for trying to steal a BMW 3 Series from an address in Solihull, earlier this year.

They were arrested after a police pursuit after an alert neighbour heard noises from the driveway and dialled 999.