Doncaster 'chop shop' with stolen car parts worth £300k discovered

The "chop shop" was found at premises on the Holmes Carr Industrial Estate, police said

Parts of 10 stolen cars worth up to £300,000 in total have been found at a suspected "chop shop" in Doncaster.

South Yorkshire Police said officers also seized at least 40 cannabis plants from the locked compound on Holmes Carr Industrial Estate on Friday.

Officers tracked a stolen BMW from Lincolnshire, which led to a discovery of other vehicles missing from Essex, Warwickshire and Sheffield at the unit.

The force said it was investigating, but no arrests had yet been made.

"Chop shops" are illicit garages where stolen cars are stripped for their parts.

Cannabis plants with an estimated street value of £6,000 were also found at the suspected "chop shop"

During searches of the premises, on Holmes Carr Road in Rossington, police said they saw "at least 10 car doors stacked in a row down the side of a wall as well as a car in the process of being stripped for parts".

Local intelligence officer Matthew Woodhall, from South Yorkshire Police, said: "We were tracking a stolen BMW from Grantham in Lincolnshire which led us to the compound.

"We used a small camera to conduct a search of the unit and found a Toyota and a Lexus which had both been stolen from London.

"There was also the stolen BMW from Grantham and a stolen BMW X3 which had been stripped down for its parts.

"Another stolen BMW from Warwickshire was also in the compound along with a stolen Skoda Kodiac from Sheffield and two stolen Kia Sportage cars from Barnet and Essex."

Detectives said pictures taken of the locked compound showed "a sophisticated operation"

The cannabis plants found at the site were estimated to be worth approximately £6,000 in street value and had since been destroyed, the force said.

CCTV recovered from the compound was being forensically examined.

Det Sgt Mark Jones described it as "a sophisticated operation with stolen vehicles and vehicle parts from all over the country".

"We know the impact car theft can have on people. That's why it's so important for us to work with other forces across the nation to trace stolen vehicles and tear apart these 'chop shops'," he said.

Cars stolen from all over the country were found in the unit