PICTURED: Inside the £450,000 Wolverhampton chop shop
These are the first pictures from inside the £450,000 Wolverhampton chop shop which gathered parts from vehicles stolen around the UK.
It was found by police after a tracker on a BMW stolen in Stockport the previous day sent signals from the industrial unit on Oxford Street in Wolverhampton.
Yesterday, the Express & Star told how vehicle repair business boss Eamonn O'Malley was jailed for three years and seven months for helping in the disposal of the cars, with an estimated value of around £450,000.
Police found the stolen 1 Series BMW, together with a hoard of parts from vehicles stolen from across the West Midlands, Manchester, London, Stoke and Nottingham.
O'Malley, from Stanton Road, Wolverhampton, fled using a ladder to scale a 12ft perimeter wall as police arrived in October, 2015.
He was arrested three days later, but claimed he sublet part of the yard to a man who regularly shipped car parts to Poland.
He admitted 22 charges of handling stolen property and was jailed at Wolverhampton Crown Court last week.
DC Lee Plant, said: "We found parts, keys and owners' manuals relating to an Audi Q5, two Porsches, BMWs and a Mercedes. There was evidence that at least 22 stolen vehicles had passed through O'Malley's yard with a combined value of £448,000.
"Most were stolen in the West Midlands – including Dudley, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall, Selly Oak and Wolverhampton – but others were traced to car thefts in Bromsgrove, Hyde, Bury, Nottingham, Stoke and London.
"O'Malley was providing a market for car thieves across the UK, people who were causing misery and huge inconvenience to motorists, and it's only right given the scale of his illegal operation that he's been handed a long jail term."
A large quantity of stolen Virgin Media set top boxes, internet routers, TV remote controllers, cabling and fitting equipment, were also found at O'Malley's car yard and matched to stock stolen from a van on April 14.
