One of Yorkshire's biggest ever 'chop shop' gangs dealt with cars stolen from far and wide - including unexpected hotspot Pocklington

The group headed up the biggest car theft conspiracy the force has ever seen and this week the final member was convicted at court.

The gang were operating various chop shops across North Lincolnshire, with large quantities of brand new and high end vehicles such as Land Rovers, Jaguars and BMWs, all of which had been stolen, stripped down and the parts sold and shipped overseas.

Their associates ventured as far as York to steal cars and almost 20 of the vehicles discovered came from Pocklington, where they had been taken during a spate of burglaries when car keys were stolen from houses.

The first chop shop was uncovered by officers in August 2020 on Hebdon Road in Scunthorpe, and led to a lengthy and protracted investigation.

Detective Inspector Mick Keech said: “As part of the investigation, we uncovered six chop shops across North Lincs, all of which had numerous vehicles in various dismantled states and an abundance of car parts.

“When car part dealers operate legitimately, they either keep, or sell the parts. However in this case, due to the vast volume of vehicles the gang were stealing at such a fast pace, they couldn’t dismantle the cars as quick as they were stealing them, and often parts were just being thrown away.

“However with expert assistance and collaboration with manufacturers, we were able to identify 72 vehicles, stolen from 17 different forces across the country as far north as York and south as Surrey.

“Nineteen of the vehicles had been stolen from our force area, mainly from the Pocklington area and linked to two in one burglaries; but all of the vehicles were broken down so we were unable to return them to their rightful owners”.

As the investigation progressed, 12 warrants were executed in Scunthorpe at residential and commercial properties across the Humberside force area, which resulted in 11 men later being charged with various offences.

Five of the men entered not guilty pleas to the charges against them, with four separate trials all taking place at Grimsby Crown Court, starting last year in August and concluding on Wednesday.

All from Grimsby, Tomas Bruzikas, 33, of Hiles Avenue, was found guilty of conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property; Lukas Voveris, 29, of Spencer Avenue, was found guilty of conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting Criminal Property and Guntars Dubrenieks, 30, of Wells Street, was found guilty of conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property.

From Scunthorpe, Giedrius Eimutis, 45, of Mulgrave Street, was found guilty of conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property and from Hull, Kantrimas Zukauskas, 43 of Wincolmlee was found guilty of conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property.

Two men were found not guilty at trial.

Four of the men, all from Scunthorpe, entered guilty pleas to the charges against them at earlier court hearings.

Sarunas Eidininkas, 26, of Somerby Road, pleaded to conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property, Lucas Lidzius, 28, of Ripon Close, pleaded to conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property, with Charlie Rhodes, 25, of Orchard Close, pleading to conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property and Darren Watson, 27, of Queensway, pleading to conspiracy to handle stolen goods and converting criminal property

They will now all be sentenced at dates to be announced.

Detective Inspector Keech continued: “Based on the car parts that were identified as part of the investigation, the value of the groups crimes amount to the value of what is believed to be over £1.2 million, highlighting the actual scale of their operation and the exhaustive work that we put into dismantling their criminality.

“We seized 208 devices including mobiles and laptops and had a total of over 1,500 exhibits in evidence from car parts to CCTV, with so many of our departments involved in the investigation.

“Organised crime groups like these are highly sophisticated and will use a variety of methods to steal and obtain vehicles, often with keyless cloning devices to try and get access without needing keys or industrial scale car jammers, which stop stolen cars being tracked.

“It is important everyone remains vigilant and takes steps to protect their vehicle from thieves, whether at home, work or in public areas.

“We are committed to taking down organised crime groups and we will always thoroughly investigate any type of criminality associated with them. These groups are a blight on our society those responsible will be dealt with and brought to justice.”