Destinations included Cyprus, Georgia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Vehicles often arrive at second-hand dealerships or scrapyards where they are sold into other Middle Eastern and North African countries, and as far as Russia,” the report said.

“Examples have emerged of vehicles vanishing from UK streets and reappearing in Moscow.”

The number of domestic vehicles stolen in the UK rose to 136,396 in 2022-3, a 75 percent rise on 2013-14, with the proportion leading to a criminal charge dropping from 9.2 percent to 2.6 percent over the same period.

The trend coincided with funding shortfalls faced by police forces resulting in fewer vehicle crime units.

Forces such as London’s Metropolitan Police, “which once possessed an almost triple-digit vehicle-crime investigative team, have seen their numbers dwindle to only a handful of officers”, the report said.

Policing authorities had also left the international dimension to car theft “largely unchecked with minimal attention paid to outgoing cargo from the UK”, it added.

AFP