31 May 2007
One of the most successful car rings to operate in Britain was found to have been aided by a crooked Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) official.
David Adams, 31, was found to have abused his position as a registration officer to help crooks gain access to more than 300 vehicles by falsifying histories for them, including BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches and Ferraris, after they had been used in car-jackings, gunpoint robberies and burglaries.
Taking backhanders of up to £500 per car, Mr Adams not only aided thieves, but also left the new innocent owners without any rights to their newly acquired vehicle, leaving them tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket.
Martyn Bower, who led the prosecution against Mr Adams and his associates, said: "This was the largest investigation into the systematic re-identification of stolen vehicles mounted by the Met Police since the heyday of car-ringing in the 1980s.
"The aim was to sell desirable, high-quality vehicles on to innocent members of the public. In reality the purchaser was buying a stolen car. The police never identified who was actually stealing the cars but there is a strong inference that whoever the thieves were they were in close contact with those at the heart at this case," he continued.
Since Mr Adams was declared to not be part of the wider scheme of events and was merely blackmailed into "smoothing the passage of many applications through the DVLA's system", he was given a sentence of just 250 hours of unpaid work.
Car rings, illegal documentation and falsifying of history all lead to insurers having to increase their premiums to cover their risk of possible expenses.
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