Black Country brothers behind bars for car theft racket on 'industrial scale'

The pair took luxury cars from driveways before cutting them down for their parts, and then selling them online.

Police recovered parts from 36 cars worth more than £500,000 when they raided lock-ups in Elmore Green, Bloxwich, and Darlaston's Franchise Street, but it's suspected Hamza and Eizam Riasat may well have dismantled and sold on many more vehicles.

The brothers from Walstead Road in Walsall, stole cars from across the West Midlands, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.

The shifty siblings were rumbled by West Midlands Police when detectives followed a tracker device signal built into a BMW X6, stolen from Solihull on July 12, 2012, to the Franchise Street unit rented by Eizam Riasat.

Officers found parts from cars worth a total of £100,000 and more from vehicles – largely high-end BMWs but also Minis and Mercedes – valued at around £430,000 when a warrant was executed at the Elmore Green site.

Hamza, aged 25, and 39-year-old Eizam both denied conspiracy to handle stolen car parts and instead claimed the car 'chop shop' was being run without their knowledge by a Polish man who was sub-letting the garage.

They refused to name the mystery man and could provide no contact details for him and yesterday at Wolverhampton Crown Court they were both jailed for five years having been found guilty at an earlier hearing.

The judge went on to describe it as a "professional, organised enterprise conducted on an industrial scale".

Investigating officer, Detective Constable Deborah Humphries, said: "We suspect many of these vehicles were being stripped down within hours of them being taken… We believe parts were being sold by various means including eBay and other online sales sites.

"These were 'keyless' thefts no doubt carried out using a device which overrides the car's on-board computers, but, although no force was used, the upset and distress caused to the victims can't be understated.

"One of the owners described her Mini as her 'pride and joy' and was shocked to later see photos of it in pieces.

"We found some of the ID marks on the cars had been ground down but vehicle examiners used their specialist, covert knowledge to help us identify some of the cars and link them to thefts."

The cars were stolen between May and August 2012.