Success claimed in crackdown on luxury car crime gangs

A POLICE crackdown on organised crime syndicates preying on some of Yorkshire's most exclusive postcodes and making off with fleets of luxury cars, has been hailed a huge success.

There had been a dramatic spike in the number of homes being targeted in "two-in-one" burglaries in Harrogate, York and Skipton, with North Yorkshire becoming a honeypot for organised gangs of criminals from outside the area, breaking into properties and stealing top-of-the-range vehicles off the owners' driveways or from the streets outside.

But following a joint operation between North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire Police, senior officers say there has been a 66 per cent drop in two-for-one burglaries across Selby, York, Harrogate and Craven during December and 10 arrests made on the roads.

The most recent took place in Ripon on Saturday afternoon.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Tim Madgwick, assistant chief constable of North Yorkshire Police, said they will be extending the operation into the new year.

"There has been a massive increase in these burglaries and we saw a real spike in the number of offences which was of real concern", he said.

"It came to a point where we had to put in place some fairly robust tactics.

"We have managed to break down the criminal networks to a degree and in November arrested our number one target who is currently on remand."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As part of the crackdown, there have been a number of dramatic high-speed chases across rural North Yorkshire over the past few weeks, with police using specialist officers to help to apprehend suspects.

Mr Madgwick said: "These are hardened criminals, not individuals who are going to comply normally with instructions.

"We have had some quite vivid examples of this in the past few weeks."