A burglar who used stolen performance cars to flee police after raiding cash machines has been ordered to pay back £45,291. Luke Price, a member of a “highly organised” crime group, admitted conspiracy to commit burglary and driving while disqualified after the gang stole close to £400,000 from 13 thefts and burglaries.
Cheshire Police launched an investigation, codenamed Operation Hades, into a series of night-time burglaries of commercial premises, during which ATMs inside were broken into and their contents stolen. The gang, made up of Price, of The Pines, Newton-le-Willows, Gaskin, Lee Leatherbarrow and John Price, used stolen Ford Transit vans to carry out the thefts and high-speed vehicles such as a stolen Volkswagen Type R, a BMW M4, and a BMW M440i.
How the gang operated
Prosecutor Henry Riding told Liverpool Crown Court in 2023 that the group was “easily able to outrun most police vehicles” when pursued. He described a carefully planned chain of events: the gang communicated using conventional mobile phones throughout the day, agreed on a meeting place, and left their telecoms devices static or inactive at rendezvous points while the burglary was carried out. Two of those locations were Price's address in Newton-le-Willows and an address linked to Gaskin in Doncaster.
Mr Riding explained that once a store was targeted, the stolen van was driven in convoy with the getaway vehicle, backed up to the shutters, and a hole was cut with a Stihl Saw or angle grinder. A large wrecking bar was used to remove the outer door of the Wincor 1500 ATM, and a heavy duty strap fixed to the van's tow-bar was hooked to the internal door, which was ripped off as the van drove off at high speed. The gang then entered the store with further tools to free cash cassettes that had not been fully exposed.
The vehicles were used with cloned, false number plates relating to vehicles of similar makes and models, with numbers obtained from vehicles advertised online on websites such as Autotrader. After Price's arrest, blank number plates and equipment used to print number plates were found at a lockup used by Leatherbarrow.
Burglaries and sentencing
Mr Riding specified that some of the burglaries took place between May and July 2022 at a Co-Op in Ermine Street, Lincolnshire, a Nisa on Longshaw Street, Warrington, a Co-op on Commercial Road, Huddersfield, a Co-Op on Shortheath Road, Moira, Swadlincote, a McColls in Peckers Hill Road, St Helens, a Co-Op on Leek New Road, Stoke-On-Trent, and a Co-Op service station on Chesterfield Road, Chesterfield.
In total, Price and Arthur Gaskin stole £391,710. Price had six previous convictions for ten offences between 2014 and 2021, including conspiracy to steal a vehicle, going equipped for burglary, aggravated vehicle taking, and dangerous driving. He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in Liverpool Crown Court.
Confiscation order
In a Court of Appeal document following a hearing last month, the court made a confiscation order to recover the proceeds of his criminal behaviour. The amount deemed available was initially estimated at £70,346, made up of the value of his Range Rover at £70,000, £220 in cash, and tools estimated to be worth £126. However, when the Range Rover was sold, it generated only £44,838, with the tools selling for £220, so the confiscation order was amended to a total of £45,291.
The drop of £25,000 meant the victims of Price's crimes received: ATM company Cardtronics got £36,371.07, Co-Op took £5,758.59, McColls £3,145.98, and Mr Solhal £15.36. The judgement, written by Lord Justice Lewis, concluded: "That will not entirely compensate the victims for what they have suffered as a result of this criminal behaviour but it is some recompense for what they have suffered as a result of the appellant's criminality. The total amount is £45,291."
