A 'PROFESSIONAL receiver' who used his garages to strip down more than £120,000 of stolen high performance vehicles has been jailed for more than six years.

Mukhtar Kazmi, 26, took cars including BMWs, a Mercedes-Benz, an Audi, and a Volkswagen van, the most expensive of which was valued at £35,000.

He had admitted nine charges of handling stolen goods at a previous hearing, and was also sentenced yesterday for his part in a commercial burglary on a Dewsbury motorcycle dealership in which 34 bikes valued at a total £178,000 were taken.

Prosecutor David Godfrey told Bradford Crown Court that on October 24, 2014, Kazmi had rented a lock-up in Banner Street, Bradford.

He was arrested on December 8, at which point police found evidence of the garage containing parts of seven stolen vehicles.

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Four of the vehicles had been taken in Hanoi-style burglaries, one stolen in a burglary at a Mercedes dealership, one taken from a delivery driver, and one stolen from a mother who had left the keys in the car on the roadside to defrost the vehicle before taking her children to school.

Kazmi answered no comment to questions put to him by officers and was subsequently bailed.

On January 19 last year, he then took a lease out on a small garage in Ings Road, Bradford, which police found had again been used to strip vehicles for parts before being sold on.

Officers found evidence of two cars being stored in the garage, one taken again while the owner was defrosting the vehicle, and the other stolen while it was parked in the valeting bay of a Mazda garage.

Mr Godfrey said there was evidence that the vehicles had been "moved on very quickly" from the two garages, with the value of the nine vehicles involved in the offences totalling £121,000.

Referring to Kazmi, he said: "This was a pre-planned operation, and he was manager of both of those sites."

Kazmi, of Curzon Road, Bradford Moor, was still on bail for the offences when he became involved in a raid on Craigs Motorcycles Ltd, on Wesley Place, Dewsbury, on May 8 last year.

The court heard that he was seen by police leaving the back door of the site carrying motorcycle helmets and other goods.

The owner of the company found that its security alarm had been tampered with, and its CCTV hard drive removed.

The gang involved made off with the 34 bikes, plus motorbike clothing and helmets valued at a £9,900, and a safe containing £8,000.

In a statement read to the court, the owner of the business said the burglary had left them unable to expand and open another branch, causing "emotional anguish" to staff.

Shufqat Khan, mitigating for Kazmi, said his client had acquired a knowledge of cars by working in his father's scrapyard, and had tried to set up its own business but had become involved with "criminals who wanted to use him and his garage".

Sentencing him to six and a half years in prison, Judge Robert Bartfield told Kazmi: "You were what the law used to describe as a professional receiver.

"You were going straight into the Premier League with these vehicles.

"Their owners would have suffered considerable distress.

"It was high-risk, high-reward offending."