The Lexus, which was worth £50,000, was fitted with a tracking device which activated immediately after it was taken from outside a house in west London.
The National Crime Agency utilised a smartphone app to track the journey that the Lexus was making – all 6,000 miles of it.
Police traced the RX450h all the way to the Ugandan capital of Kampala. Here, it was found amongst a fleet of 28 other luxury cars that had all been stolen in and smuggled from the UK.
From London, the Lexus was taken by ferry to Le Havre, France. From here, it was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea and down the Suez Canal to Oman in the Middle East. After this, it made the final leg of its journey to Mombasa in Kenya before travelling to its last destination in Kampala.
© Provided by AOL Cars UK One of the cars stolen in London which was traced to a car yard in Uganda. See SWNS story SWSTOLEN; Detectives tracing a Lexus stolen from London ended up locating it in…National Crime Agency regional manager Paul Stanfield, who was in charge of tracking and finding the Lexus in question, told the Daily Mail: “This investigation is an excellent example of the close co-operation between the UK National Crime Agency, National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, Interpol and [anti-fraud investigators] APU to tackle the increasing threat from organised vehicle crime.
“Working with the police and security services in Kenya and Uganda, we have been able to dismantle an international criminal network that has been responsible for stealing high-value cars from the UK and exporting them to east Africa.”
UK detectives tracing a Lexus stolen from London ended up tracking it all the way to Uganda where it was discovered alongside a group of British cars worth £1 million.
