MEMBERS of a high-end vehicle theft ring have been jailed for more than 17 years after cops uncovered their car cutting den in Lye.

Akhtar Zamir, Khuram Razaq and Nakash Javaid from Birmingham stole four luxury Audis in the space of five days last year in Birmingham, Coventry and Solihull before mechanic accomplices Thomas Winkett and Wayne Williams from Brierley Hill stripped them down at an industrial unit in Stour Vale Road.

Using a key-copying device − allowing them to steal security data from on-board computers and program it onto blank keys − they drove off with two Audi RS5s, an A5 and an A4 worth around £200,000.

However, covert enquiries led West Midlands Police detectives to the ring’s ‘chop shop’ in Lye and when officers raided the unit on October 4 all five men were arrested and parts from the stolen Audis recovered.

The unit was owned by 23-year-old Javaid and run as a car wash and part-worn tyre business to act as a cover for the crooked enterprise; police search teams found a wall of tyres piled high against the entrance to the cutting workshop.

Three days earlier officers intercepted associates Carlos Hemmings and Adam Leek, both from Birmingham, travelling north on the M6 in a van crammed with body panels taken from a £50,000 RS5 stolen from an address in Willenhall, on September 30.

Sparkbrook pair Zamir , aged 25, and 23-year-old Razaq − from Gladstone Road and Stoney Lane − admitted conspiracy to steal cars and at Birmingham Crown Court on September 16 they were jailed for four years eight months and three years six months respectively.

Javaid, from Beech Roads, Sparkhill, and 26-year-old Hemmings from Ivor Road, Sparkhill, admitted conspiracy to handle stolen goods and were jailed for 25 and 24 months respectively.

Car cutters Williams, aged 32, from Wallows Road, Brierley Hill, and Winkett, aged 26, from Norwood Road, Brierley Hill, admitted the same handling conspiracy charge and were both put behind bars for 20 months.

And 31-year-old Leek, from Brean Avenue, Yardley, admitted handling and was given a suspended 12-month jail sentence and ordered to carry out 200 hours of community work.

Sergeant Glenn Marriott, who heads up Operation Transmission - a West Midlands Police taskforce tackling sophisticated ‘key-less’ car thefts, said: "Members of the group toured residential streets on the look-out for top-end Audis and, having identified a target, would return in the early hours to steal them using a key-programming gadget.

"It was a sophisticated set-up and the group worked quickly to strip down the stolen cars and move on the parts − in fact body panels recovered from the van on the M6 were from an RS5 stolen in Coventry just 14 hours earlier.

"Police intelligence and covert enquiries identified the Lye unit as being pivotal to the operation and when we raided it we caught them red-handed with the car parts and diagnostic equipment for programming blank keys."

The group stole an Audi A4 from Cheylesmore in the early hours of September 26 last year and three days later drove off in an A5 parked at a house in Edgbaston.

Later that evening Razaq sent a text message to Zamir saying "fne (phone) me…found a present" referring to an RS5 he’d spotted on a driveway in Willenhall, which was stolen in the early hours of September 30.

And at 1.40am on October 1 CCTV caught gang members snatching another RS5 from The Village Hotel in Solihull.

Zamir, Razaq and Javaid were all arrested at the transmission unit during the October 4 warrant, while officers stopped Williams and Winkett in a taxi in Hayes Lane after the pair tried fleeing the industrial park.