Moment police smash down doors to arrest car theft gang bosses who steal high-end motors off drives and ship them to Congo within days

Published: 09:44 EDT, 5 November 2026 | Updated: 09:44 EDT, 5 November 2026 This is the moment police smash down a set of doors to arrest bosses of a car theft gang who steal high-end motors off drives and ship them to the Congo within days.Officers on Wednesday raided a storage unit and three residential addresses in north Manchester, arresting two men in their 30s, a man in his 40s, and a woman in her 30s, for conspiracy to steal motor vehicles and conspiracy to handle stolen vehicles.The gang has allegedly been involved in the international shipping of 19 stolen vehicles worth £600,000 which were recovered during the investigation. They have been hacking into locking systems using 'sophisticated' electronic devices to gain entry to garages, according to police intelligence.Many cars end up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Central Africa - where such vehicles can fetch tens of thousands and go largely undetected. Footage of the dramatic raid sees a group of armed police, wearing padding and helmets, smash a red door down using a battering ram.Officers pour into the building with loud shouts heard in the commotion in the middle of the night.The clip then skips forward to show an officer dragging a hand-cuffed suspect through the front door and onto the street before placing him into a police van. Police smash down a set of doors in north Manchester to arrest bosses of a car theft gang who steal high-end motors off drives and ship them to the Congo Four were arrested in a series of raids in the city and the suspects could be seen being dragged away by cops and placed in police vansThose arrested were from the Congo, including the DRC, Detective Chief Superintendent Lewis Hughes said.Britain's car theft industry is worth £1.77billion, according to a 2025 report from the Royal United Services Institute, with many vehicles headed to the Congo, as well as the UAE, Lithuania, Georgia and Azerbaijan.Such destinations are particularly appealing as many local police forces 'show little appetite for cracking down' on a crime which generally affects wealthy Westerners, the study says.This, along with corruption, often ensures the stolen vehicles are allowed to move around freely once in the destination country. There is a particular desire for stolen parts in the Congo amid a severe shortage in the region. Ultra-sophisticated gangs target specific models in specific locations often drawing up 'shopping lists', suggesting most of the thefts are conducted to order.They exploit weaknesses in the security systems of some of the world's top car brands, 'relaying' key fob signals from inside victims' homes to trick vehicles into thinking their key is nearby.Once stolen, the cars are often rapidly transported to ports to be shipped abroad, although in many cases they languish in temporary storage facilities while criminals rigorously check them for location trackers.Enforcement is notoriously tricky with INTERPOL's Stolen Motor Vehicle database containing 270,000 stolen vehicles globally in 2024 alone - and yet very few are recovered once they make it overseas.Reacting to the successful Manchester raid, DCS Hughes said: 'It is a lucrative market. These aren't cheap vehicles; these are prestigious vehicles, high-value vehicles.'Obviously worth a lot on the criminal market, and organised networks are exploiting weaknesses in various systems, taking them off people's driveways, shipping them abroad, clearly to other criminals elsewhere in the world.'Storage yards like the one raided this week are often used to take parts or remove identifying features from vehicles before a rapid shipping process, the officer added. The four alleged ringleaders arrested this week remain in custody for questioning.