Romanian gangs 'looting lorries from moving cars'
Police warn that increasingly dangerous techniques are enabling gangs to steal £30,000 of goods a day
[video=youtube;j7C07gMwB3U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7C07gMwB3U[/video]
A helicopter from Romania's Department for Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) filmed thieves climbing from the bonnet of a moving car into the back of a lorry in 2012
By Victoria Ward
8:32AM BST 26 Jun 2015
Romanian gangs are breaking into moving lorries by jumping from the bonnets of cars travelling at 50mph, it has emerged.
They are held steady by an accomplice as they climb through their vehicle's roof and onto the bonnet before using a knife or crowbar to break into the lorry, stealing any goods and passing them back into the car.
The dangerous technique has left police stunned and has raised concerns about how far the criminals are prepared to go for relatively little reward.
The gangster inches forward on the bonnet as his accomplice holds his legs
Supt Paul Keasey, who is leading Operation Trivium, an intelligence-led crackdown on Britain's roads, said: "Their propensity to commit crimes where the risk appears to me to outweigh the gain has most surprised me.
"I mean, would you climb on to the front of a moving vehicle for as little as £150?"
The technique of boarding speeding lorries is reportedly known as "the Romanian rollover" .
The first men prosecuted for it were 11 Romanians who were caught driving a Citroën Relay van on the M6 with a homemade, lockable hatch cut into the roof near Keele, Staffordshire, last May.
The gangsters use a special tool to break open the back door of the lorry
They were accused of plotting to use the vehicle for daring high-speed thefts, admitted conspiracy to rob and were each sentenced to two years in prison.
A spate of about 50 such cases, which often involve decoy cars driving in front of the lorry to slow it down, was also reported by police in northern Germany in 2013.
And Irish police believe that the same tactic led to the theft of cigarettes worth £71,000 in March.
Mr Keasey, of West Midlands police, told The Times: "We need to understand the [criminal] culture to understand their willingness to take risks and the level of control and manipulation within their own hierarchy, which is often feudal.
"Often it's a rural system: they have their own rules, their own controlling mechanisms. They are far more organised than we originally thought.
"[Romanian criminals] are working in gangs capable of stealing £30,000 of goods in a day. That's the sort of thing you didn't have to tackle maybe ten years ago. We have had that influx of people coming into the UK."
Operation Trivium involves officers brought in from forces in Romania and Lithuania, Europol, the National Crime Agency, the Gangmasters' Licensing Authority and government departments including Home Office immigration enforcement.
This year's five-day operation, which ends today, has so far led to the arrest of more than 160 foreigners, some on European arrest warrants who can now be deported.
