Three men jailed after £160k cars stolen from Bilston car auction centre
Three men linked to stolen vehicles that included two of the five cars worth a total of £160,000 stole from a motor auction site have been jailed.
The lock was cut on the main gates to BCA in Bessemer Close, Bilston, and four BMWs and a Mini were driven away after their ignition keys had been stolen from metal storage boxes on September 23, a judge heard.
This came 13 days after a £10,000 Ford Transit van with a £5,300 load of electrical goods was stolen from outside the Premier Inn on Stafford Road, Bushbury, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
Police investigating the thefts went to an address in Broadmoor Close, Bilston, at 7.20am on September 26 in an unsuccessful search for a suspect.
But when officers walked round the corner into Horning Drive they saw a white Transit van on false plates with two men fast asleep inside, revealed Mr Ian Ball, prosecuting.
Once roused Mitchell Baker, aged 22, and 31-year-old Anthony McDonagh both failed to run away from the vehicle which turned out to be the van stolen from outside the Premier Inn.
While Baker was being detained the key to one of the cars stolen from the auction site fell from his pocket and the £14,900 BMW 1 series car was found parked in a neighbouring street, the court heard.
McDonagh had been caught on CCTV stealing four sets of number plates, none of which were used in crime.
A £30,700 BMW X5 also taken in the raid had a tracker device and police ambushed it near Wolverhampton city centre while it was being driven by 22-year-old Alexandru Marcu, continued the prosecutor.
He had £1,499 cash and had been on the run since failing to turn up for a case at Chester Crown Court involving offences committed two years earlier.
Marcu from Stanford Road, Blakenhall, admitted handling the stolen BMW, together with theft and fraud from the earlier offence, and was jailed for 20 months.
Baker of Dartmouth Avenue, Willenhall, pleaded guilty to handling stolen transit van and being in possession of the key to the stolen BMW.
He was locked up for 17 months. McDonagh, of Astoria Close, Willenhall, received a 15-month prison sentence after admitting handling the stolen Transit and stealing registration plates.
Neither of the three defendants had been accused of vehicle theft by police.
