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£100,000 Range Rover Sport Stolen In UK Found Loaded In A Container Enroute To Africa
£100k Range Rover Sport SUV stolen in UK found loaded in a container en route to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The british-made SUV vanished in the garage before the owner woke up on a fateful morning in July 2022.
Theft caught on family’s CCTV, and according to report, it took thieves just 63 secs to steal the Range Rover SUV.
Police say cars stolen in the UK often end up in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan because of demand for right-hand drive vehicles.
Nigeria and Ghana is the key “hub” for cars stolen from North America, Western Europe due to demand for left-hand drives.
A Range Rover Sport SUV belonging to a couple living in Essex, the United Kingdom, was found at the UK port before it was shipped out the country after being picked up on a car tracking device.
The british-made SUV vanished in the garage before the couple, Anthony and Danielle Wilson, woke up on a fateful morning in July 2022. It was tracked to Tilbury, where it was found loaded on a container enroute to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The theft was caught on the family’s CCTV system, and according to report, it took the thieves just 63 seconds to steal the Range Rover Sport from the couple’s gated home.
The police told the couple they might have been followed by the thieves for some time before the Range Rover was taken.
“Police had said there was a chance that I’d been followed because they’d obviously got in it without the keys, so maybe they cloned the key or found a way to get into it when I’d been out and about, and I only ever go anywhere with my little toddler so it worried me then”, said Mrs Wilson.
Mr Wilson, in his own reaction, said :
“When you watch the CCTV, it’s almost incredible that somebody walks up to the car, and 63 seconds later is driving an expensive car down the driveway having never seen the keys in their life.”
Par BBC report, the Range Rover Sport’s tracking system alerted police when it got out of range of the keys, which were still with the Wilsons.
The Range Rover SUV worth £100,000 was discovered wedged inside a shipping container at the Port of Tilbury, in Essex, nearly a month after it was stolen.
Essex Police’s Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit said that theft of vehicles on the rise in the UK. In 2021, the police recovered about 480 cars while more than 600 cars were recovered in 2022.
Cars stolen in the UK often end up in African countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Sudan because of the demand for right-hand drive vehicles, according to Renato Schipani, a criminal intelligence officer focusing on stolen vehicles with Interpol.
Schipani noted that West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana, on the other hand, was the key “hub” for cars stolen from North America and Western Europe because of the demand for left-hand drives.
