£1m car theft gang who cut Ferrari in half jailed for years

An extensive police investigation caught the gang led by Michael Kozub and Filip Zablocki, who would dismantle stolen vehicles at their 'chop shops'. 

Detectives revealed that Kozub, 46, Zablocki, 31, and their cohort were the 'go-to' contacts for thieves across England who would deliver them stolen cars. 

Gang members would then dismantle the vehicles - even chopping a Ferrari in half on one occasion - before moving and later exporting the separate parts. 

Three police forces worked together in a 17-month investigation to bring down the lynchpins of the criminal enterprise, culminating in the conviction and jailing of three members, with another narrowly avoiding jail. 

A 'painstaking' investigation into the gang of four by detectives from Surrey Police, the Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary was initiated after a previous case saw other criminals convicted of stealing over 125 cars. 

Officers spent hours scrutinising phone messages in a 17-month investigation spanning 2022 and 2023. They identified that the criminal enterprise operated on a huge scale, with car thieves doing the dirty work for a central team that handled the stolen goods. 

Thieves would deliver cars stolen from Kent, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and London to the four organisers, who used two sites as their chop shops. 

There, they dismantled the cars - including an expensive Ferrari that officers later found cut in half. 

After police discovered one site in Horley, West Sussex, last autumn, the gang swiftly relocated to another in Crawley, also in West Sussex. 

However, detectives quickly tracked the enterprise down for a second time at its new HQ. 

Kozub, of Wandsworth in south London, and Zablocki, of Mitcham in south London, were said to be the central figures of the operation. 

The pair were described as the ‘go-to’ contacts for car thieves, organising stolen cars to be delivered to their chop shops and keeping in close contact with an extensive network of convicted car thieves.

Kozub was jailed for six years and three months after admitting to charges of conspiracy to receive stolen goods, with magistrates at Brighton Magistrates' Court also imposing a serious crime prevention order. 

Zablocki was jailed for two years and eight months after the same offences, as well as another for possession of cocaine.

Accomplice Dominik Mrzyglod owned a transportation business and was responsible for getting the stolen cars, both whole or in parts, out of the UK. 

The 46-year-old, of Walton-on-Thames in northwest Surrey, pleaded guilty as his trial was looming and was sentenced to three years and one month in jail.

The gang's mechanic, 49-year-old Mariusz Parafiniuk of Lewisham in southeast London, was convicted of conspiracy to receive stolen goods in April following a trial at Guildford Crown Court. 

He received a 15-month prison sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to pay £2000 in costs.

Detective Inspector Dan Voller, of Surrey Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit, explained that the total value of cars to have passed through the gang amounted to nearly a million pounds. 

[These] sentences are a result of excellent teamwork between a number of teams in Surrey Police and joint working with colleagues in the Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary," he said.

"This included hours of meticulous searching through mobile phone evidence to prove there was a case to answer for conspiracy. 

"We recovered cars to the value of over half a million pounds and believe that the total value of the cars that passed through this gang’s operation is close to a million pounds."