Car thefts have soared due to a lack of policing at Britain’s busiest port, allowing criminals to ship stolen vehicles to the Middle East and Africa.
A lone cop is responsible for screening containers for stolen vehicles at Felixstowe in Suffolk, making it easier for criminals to export cars out of the country, The Times reports.
Adam Gibson, the only police officer at the port, said that there was ‘no way in hell’ that he could search even a small portion of the containers before they were loaded on to giant vessels and shipped off.
In the whole of the south of the UK, there are just three dedicated officers.
The lack of checks is said to be fuelling the increase in car thefts across Britain.
According to industry figures, less than five in every 100,000 containers leaving the country are searched, while thieves are becoming better at hiding their stolen goods.
In 2024, a total of 129,727 cars were reported stolen.
Stolen vehicles being exported out of the UK, most commonly to the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United Arab Emirates, are often stored with other metal goods to conceal them and confuse metal detectors.
An aerial photograph taken on August 22, 2022 shows the Ever Alot container ship docked by stopped container loading cranes at the empty UK’s largest freight port, in Felixstowe
Felixstowe in Suffolk is the UK’s largest and busiest container port
Other vehicles are stolen and immediately stripped for parts, which are then shipped out of the country.
The Middle East and Africa have a huge market for second-hand car parts, driving the demand for stolen cars in the UK which is also linked to illegal drugs market.
Tim Morris of the Associated British Ports said: ‘It really is a needle in a haystack.
‘At any point there can be thousands of containers on the dockside. The information we have on what is in them is scarce and the ability to target is very hard. We are only told if the contents are dangerous, for example fireworks.
‘The authorities do have more detailed manifests, but of course these do not say ‘cocaine’ or ‘stolen cars’ so it has to be intelligence led. As ports we are simply told to move X container from a stack to an inspection point.’
Earlier this year, investigators opened a shipping container at Felixstowe port hiding three stolen pick-up trucks which were intended to be smuggled to Africa.
The three vehicles worth at least £40,000 each were found to have been stacked on top of each other in the container which was intercepted at the port.
Experts told Channel 4’s Dispatches that Hyundai, Kia, Toyota and Lexus cars were increasingly being stolen as well as higher-value Range Rovers.
The sting was carried out by Mr Gibson, who could not reveal on camera why the containers he was checking were deemed suspicious amid fears such a revelation could give criminals an advantage.
But the clip showed his team opening up the unit at Felixstowe, which is the UK’s largest container port where 11,000 shipping containers pass through each day.
Inside the container he found three cars stacked on top of one another, all stolen and with falsified paperwork.
Investigators open up a shipping container at Felixstowe amid suspicions stolen cars are inside
Three stolen pick-up trucks are found inside the container which was meant to head to Africa
Mr Gibson said: ‘We’ve seen five cars in a container this size, so you’ll see quite quickly from the way it’s probably loaded that something’s not quite right.’
Looking inside, he added: ‘They’ve got £40,000 plus per car. That’s not how you load them in a container. This box is headed to Africa, which the roads out in Africa are obviously suited to this kind of thing.’
A white pick-up truck Mr Gibson found had a 2022 number plate – but he determined that it was actually made in 2023 and had been reported stolen from Kent in January.
He continued: ‘Whereas we were finding Range Rovers worth £150,000, we’re getting pickup trucks and SUVs worth £40,000 now.
‘We are seeing brands like Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Lexus. So the quality has dropped off, I suppose, but the volume has gone up.’
Across three containers, Mr Gibson found 12 cars in total – with family photographs visible inside at least one of them.
He added: ‘Some gangs will literally gut the car of any personal effects. Others will just leave everything.
‘There’s kids’ seats, toys, all sorts of them. I’m constantly told by people that vehicle crime, where it’s victimless, it’s just the insurance companies.
‘Yes, the insurance company pay out, but we all get our premiums go up because the insurance aren’t going to absorb it. So it has a knock-on effect on everyone else.’
