£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 dismantling stolen vehicles in their “chop shops”.

Investigators revealed that 46-year-old Kozub, 31-year-old Zablocki and their cohort were the contacts for thieves across England who supplied them with stolen cars.

The gang members then dismantled the vehicles – once even cutting a Ferrari in half – before moving the individual parts and later exporting them.

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

A “painstaking” investigation into the gang of four by detectives from Surrey Police, Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary was launched after other criminals were convicted of stealing more than 125 cars in a previous case.

In a 17-month investigation that spanned 2022 and 2023, officers spent hours reviewing phone messages. They discovered that the criminal enterprise operated on a large scale, with car thieves doing the dirty work for a central team that dealt with the stolen goods.

Thieves delivered stolen cars from Kent, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and London to the four organizers, who used two sites as their workshop.

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

After police discovered a location in Horley, West Sussex, last autumn, the gang quickly moved to another in Crawley, also in West Sussex.

However, investigators quickly located the company at its new headquarters a second time.

Kozub, from Wandsworth, south London, and Zablocki, from Mitcham, south London, are said to have been the central figures in the operation.

The pair were described as “go-to people” for car thieves, arranging the delivery of stolen cars to their garages and maintaining close contact with an extensive network of convicted car thieves.

Kozub was jailed for six years and three months after admitting charges of conspiring to obtain stolen goods. Judges at Brighton Magistrates’ Court also made a serious crime prevention order.

Zablocki was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for the same offenses, as well as a further prison sentence for cocaine possession.

The accomplice, Dominik Mrzyglod, owned a transport company and was responsible for getting all or part of the stolen cars out of the UK.

The 46-year-old, from Walton-on-Thames, north-west Surrey, pleaded guilty as he approached his trial and was sentenced to three years and one month in prison.

The gang’s mechanic, 49-year-old Mariusz Parafiniuk, from Lewisham, south-east London, was convicted of conspiracy to steal stolen goods after a trial at Guildford Crown Court in April.

He received a 15-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to pay £2,000 costs.

Detective Inspector Dan Voller, from Surrey Police’s Serious and Organized Crime Unit, said the total value of the cars driven by the gang was almost £1 million.

[These] “The penalties are the result of excellent teamwork between multiple Surrey Police teams and collaboration with colleagues from the Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary,” he said.

“This involved hours of meticulous sifting through cell phone evidence to prove there was a case for conspiracy.”

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