West Yorkshire bullets-for-sale gang behind bars after massive haul of 300,000 rounds

On the night of February 17, 2021, the gang broke into a lorry parked in the Sutton Coldfield area in the West Midlands. 66 boxes - amounting to roughly 330,000 rounds of .22 ammunition - were loaded onto another lorry using false plates. The stolen ammunition was then driven north to West Yorkshire.

A joint investigation by West Yorkshire Police, West Midlands Police, the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit and the National Crime Agency (NCA) tracked the stolen ammunition through CCTV and intelligence. Officers eventually recovered 64 of the 66 boxes in a van during a raid in Farnley.

The complex investigation began in the days following the raid, and the suspect lorry was quickly identified and tracked to West Yorkshire. Specialist officers were able to use CCTV and other pieces of evidence to piece together the movement of the persons involved and where the ammunition had been stored.

It was established that the gang had driven the lorry to Dewsbury, where the haul was unloaded into a unit on Lock Street. It was later moved again into a Fiat Scudo van.

Officers executed warrants at a number of locations in Leeds and Kirklees overnight between February 25 and 26, 2021, arresting a number of gang members. In Farnley, officers located the van and recovered 64 of the 66 stolen boxes.

Searches were also conducted at a farm in Aberford, where the Leyland DAF lorry used to mount the heist was found.

Yesterday (November 26), eight men appeared at Leeds Crown Court and received the following sentences for conspiracy to steal from a motor vehicle and possessing ammunition without a certificate:

• John Bull, 40, of Upper Blakeridge Lane, Batley: 4 years
• Anver Valli, 51, of Warren Street, Dewsbury: 4 years 9 months
• James Coffey, 47 of New Village, Morley: 3 years 3 months
• Damien Cooper, 34, no fixed address: 2 years 3 months
• Harrison Pratt, 28, of Hawley Mill Lane, Batley: 3 years 6 months
• Anas Rasool, 29, of Thornhill Street, Dewsbury: 16 months suspended
• Paul Singh, 45, of First Avenue, Leeds: 12 months suspended
• Jamie Patel,39, of Stanningley Road, Leeds: 15 months suspended

DCI David Shaw of West Yorkshire Police’s Precision Serious Organised Crime Unit, who was the Senior Investigating Officer in the case, said it is hard to imagine a crime that would pose as great a potential risk to public safety as the theft of live ammunition.

He said: “Even though the bullets were of a lower sporting calibre, they could very much have posed a real threat to life. It was this threat which prompted the launch of such a large operation between police forces and our partners to locate and recover the ammunition as quickly as possible.

“Thanks to those enquiries, the vast majority of the stolen bullets were soon safely off the streets with smaller further amounts of the outstanding shells since subsequently recovered in West Yorkshire.”

He added: “This case really does highlight the joint working which takes place between police forces and specialist agencies on an almost daily basis to foil serious organised criminals such as these men.

“We do possess the resources to track these crime networks across the country and swiftly implement large-scale operations in the most serious cases, as we have seen here.

“Operations to target organised criminality continue across West Yorkshire, and those involved in this activity should know that we and colleagues will use all necessary resources to bring them to justice.”

Det Insp Al Teague, from the West Midlands Police Major Crime Unit, said: "We worked really closely with our colleagues from West Yorkshire Police in the aftermath of the theft. Everyone involved in the operation knew that time was of the essence.

"The threat that this ammunition could have posed to public safety was hard to imagine, and all law enforcement agencies involved were determined to safely recover the boxes and bring those involved to justice."