THE senior Flying Squad officer that helped put the ram raid gang behind bars is thrilled with the detective work that went into capturing the thieves in action.
On August 19 last year, William Connors (29), of Exmouth Road in Hayes; Darren Eastaugh (36), of Bedfont Close, Feltham; and Anthony Rodwell (33), of Laurel Gardens, Ashford in Surrey, were arrested as they attempted to raid the Tesco store attached to the Esso garage in Emmer Green.
A fourth man, Sebastian Gnyp (37), of Allenby Road, Ealing, was arrested on September 23.
Last week, they were jailed, bringing their crime wave to an end.
Detective Inspector Ari Yoganathan, Senior Investigating Officer from the Flying Squad, said despite the gang’s efforts to thwart detection, they did have a pattern.
“The typical things criminals do to frustrate investigators are wearing masks and gloves, but after a couple of offences it was apparent it was the same gang working on the offences,” he said.
“Their modus operandi was largely the same: they would steal a large vehicle, typically an SUV, along with a performance vehicle. The intention would be to use the SUV to run the target premises – largely supermarkets and grocery stores, to steal by force cash boxes and ATMs, before making their escape in a performance car.
“It had a huge impact on many levels: on the unwitting members of the public who had their vehicles stolen off their drives, the literal carnage that was left behind at the various targets, the material loss in terms of items stolen, and the damage that had to be replaced, together with loss of earnings to the business and the local communities.”
DI Yoganathan said it took many months to gather enough evidence to convict the four, but members of the public should be reassured by this: “The successful prosecution should be reassuring to business owners and the wider public – we are there, and we will do what we can as quickly and effectively as we can.
“The flip side is to any budding criminals out there: they should be deterred at what might seem like an easy option.”
He praised his officers for their work: “We have some amazing officers on the flying squad – really diligent with a number of skills and very dedicated for what they do. They worked very hard on this for months to gather evidence. The prosecution was completely down to their outstanding work.
“It’s nice to have achieved a positive result.”
On advice to people who own SUVs or performance cars, he encouraged them to consider physical security such as locking gates, installing cameras, use vehicle locks, trackers and immobilisers. For those with keyless vehicles they should used Faraday boxes or bags to block any signals.
