SUPERCARS, including Porsches and Lamborghinis, worth a whopping £6.5million, are being “stolen to order” from the UK and shipped to Thailand.
Luxury cars valued at millions of pounds are making their way back to the UK after being shipped to Thailand by criminal gangs that targeted motor dealers.
The motors including a £222,000 Lamborghini Huracan Spyder were returned to their owners after police successfully dismantled the international smuggling ring.
The luxury motor had accumulated 8,000 miles and was originally purchased from a company specialising in supercar rentals.
Police described the operation as a “sophisticated” finance fraud as they recovered Porsches, Mercedes and a Ford Mustang.
Intarasak Techaterasiri, the mastermind behind the thefts, recruited several people, including four UK citizens, to establish his vast criminal enterprise.
From 2016 to 2017, the gang ordered supercars on finance from dealerships in England and exported them to Thailand, where they were sold through legitimate dealerships.
A Porsche 718 Boxsters, a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and a Range Rover SV Autobiography were among the luxury cars shipped to Bangkok.
A team led by the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS), known as Operation Titanium, was assembled after four Mercedes vehicles were discovered in a container at Southampton Port.
The investigation revealed that the same person was sending other luxury UK vehicles that had been fraudulently obtained in Bangkok.
The NaVCIS uncovered that at least 35 cars were stolen from the UK through finance fraud schemes.
These vehicles would be transported to Heathrow before being shipped by air freight to Thailand and sold.
Sharon Naughton, Head of NaVCIS, said the discovery at Southampton Port was “the pivot point that then led us to work with the Thai authorities and national crime agencies to uncover what was a whole criminal enterprise”.
The criminal behind the “stolen to order” scheme is now in prison in his home country awaiting trial.
Four arrests were also made in the UK, though no charges were filed.
Sharon added: “The person was a private individual who was renting cars.
“To lose a valuable asset really hurt him and his business personally.”
The supercars, now significantly depreciated in value since their theft eight years ago, were displayed inside a warehouse in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
It comes after five supercars worth over half a million pounds were stolen from a company offering racetrack driving experiences by a planned “gang heist”.
And this is the moment yobs who allegedly stole five supercars worth £500,000 from a racetrack bragged about the late-night heist on TikTok.
