'Alert' officer caught suspect in £500,000 car theft plot in North Wales

A MAN has been jailed for his part in a “sophisticated” plot to steal 16 high value cars worth up to £500,000 from Cheshire and North Wales.

- By DAVID POWELL Daily Post Reporter [e-mail]

Tomas Politovas covered CCTV and doorbell cameras with duct tape and used high tech equipment and GPS jamming devices before stealing BMWs and other vehicles.

He would break them up with accomplices probably to sell the parts abroad.

Even when the schemers’ barn in Norfolk was raided their thefts continued.

But a judge praised “alert” police officers in Prestatyn after they spotted Politovas's suspicious car and arrested him.

He was found with a rucksack containing a Stanley knife and other “tools of his trade,” Caernarfon Crown Court heard.

The 35-year-old, of no fixed address but who had lived in Northampton, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal motor vehicles and possession of a bladed article.

He was jailed for three years and nine months, and for three months, respectively for those offences.

Prosecutor Anna Pope said the defendant and at least one other person travelled to North Wales and Cheshire to steal, or try to steal, high-value cars worth £450,000 to £500,000 over about eight weeks. A signal jammer was used to block the signal from the key fob so the door could be unlocked without a key.