11:03 am, May 15, 2025
Police have arrested three men after closing down a raid on a suspected ‘chop shop’ which was stripping down stolen cars and selling their parts.
Officers in Sheffield discovered the illicit operation earlier this month when tracking a yellow Land Rover, which had been stolen a few days prior.
Following up on a tip off, police attended an an industrial estate near the Middlewood area of Sheffield where they discovered four men moving parts believed to have been stripped from the Land Rover.
Three men aged 61, 30 and 37 were arrested at the scene on suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle but a fourth suspect managed to get away.
The trio have been released on please bail pending further enquiries but South Yorkshire Police have pledged to come down hard on criminals running illegal chop shops.
Detective Sergeant Thomas Jordan, of the Neighbourhood Crime Team in Sheffield, said: ‘So-called chop shops form part of much wider organised criminality and often involve cars being stolen on order to be stripped of their parts and sold on for cash.
‘We know there is a direct link between this organised criminality and burglaries, and that is why we are appealing for information to help us shut down this harmful trade in Sheffield and across South Yorkshire.
‘Young people are often exploited and promised cash if they provide stolen vehicles to units for them to dismantle and sell on, and we know this cross-border offending takes place across the county.
‘Our message is clear. If you think something isn’t right, report it to us or completely anonymously to Crimestoppers.
‘Things to look out for could be someone asking you to do some work on a vehicle ‘on the cheap’, or an unusually high number of vehicles coming and going from a unit.
‘We need your information to act as this helps us build up a picture of offending patterns and gives us the power to look into reports in more detail.’
Last month five men were jailed for running a similar operation out of a leafy corner of Surrey.
Other chop shops have also been uncovered in Rotherham and Basildon so far this year.
