It’s all too common for stories of stolen cars to have unhappy endings, and that’s presumably what the owners of some 30 performance cars stolen in the UK back in 2016 and 2017 had spent the best part of a decade thinking had happened. In a rare positive twist, though, the cars have turned up in Thailand seven to eight years later, and are now on their way back to their original owners.
Most of the fleet of cars belonged to finance companies and were acquired through fraudulent hire-purchase agreements, according to the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS), an independent police-affiliated intelligence service that works with UK police forces to combat car finance crime.
Recovered stolen cars © NaVCIS
In addition to NaVCIS, London’s Metropolitan Police, Bangkok’s Department of Special Investigations, the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office, and the British and Thai embassies in each respective country were all involved in the investigation.
Taken by what seems to be one organised crime unit, the cars were shipped to Singapore under fraudulent papers, before continuing their journey to Thailand. According to the Department of Special Investigations, raids of showrooms and industrial units in nine separate locations across Bangkok led to the recovery of 30 cars, although a further five are yet to be traced.
A stolen Lamborghini Huracan upon its recovery in Thailand
Multiple arrests have been made, and charges have been brought against 13 people, including the operation’s alleged leader, reports the BBC.
The cars recovered are some of the cream of the performance crop of the mid-2010s. Most exotic is a Lamborghini Huracan Spyder, and there are also multiple Porsche Boxsters and Caymans including a Cayman GT4. Also among the haul of cars are three Nissan GT-Rs, five F82/3 BMW M4s, a Ford Mustang, a Range Rover and an FK2 Honda Civic Type R. The cars, when new, were estimated to be worth a total of over £6 million.
The owner of the Huracan runs a business that hires out luxury and performance cars, which apparently came close to going under as a result of the theft. It’s now been returned to him along with the rest of the cars to their rightful owners.
While it’s not quite the 28 years that passed between the theft and recovery of F1 driver Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari F512 M, it’s still refreshing to see this story have a happy ending. We’ve contacted NaVCIS for further detail and will update this story if we hear back.
