The Scene

From November 2016 – June 2017, Edward Barrington, Luke Heron, Kelvin Harding, Michael Fear and Stephen Goode executed a ‘chop shop’ operation which led to many high value vehicles being stolen across the United Kingdom. The majority of vehicles were 4X4’s produced by Jaguar Land Rover including the models; Range Rovers, Range Rover Sports, Discovery and Defenders.

It was reported that the gang used a keyless fob method to hack into the car’s electronics system and steal the cars. They then drove them to Edward Barrington’s garage, in Sling, Forest of Dean. Once there, the cars were either re-plated, or dismantled and their individual parts sold to overseas buyers.

Gloucestershire police stated in court that they were first alerted to the operation after ‘a stolen motorhome was tracked down by its owner to Mr. Barrington’s breakers yard, where they later noticed two Land Rovers with the same number plates.’

The ‘Operation Range” investigation was soon initiated, and a month’s worth of CCTV recordings was seized from the premises which showed the suspects taking the vehicles into the yard and taking them apart. Several mobile devices belonging to the suspects were seized and submitted to digital forensics. “Investigators had painstakingly processed and analyzed all the extract digital evidence needed for court to assist with the prosecution,” said Detective Sergeant Harry Limer, who led the Gloucestershire Police investigation.

All the lawfully collected data extractions had been loaded into Cellebrite Physical Analyzer first. “The chat view in Cellebrite Physical Analyzer really helped us,” said DS Limer. He also added that the geotags on the photographs were helpful when passing the data to their analyst as they could overlay the data from other information in the investigation to produce a comprehensive picture of the crimes being committed.

“To do the procedures manually, it would have taken months. An officer spent quite a long time with just one problematic mobile phone that experiencing data download and upload challenges. Just overcoming those two issues took several hours until we could even look at the data,” said DS Limer. He further stated that, “the objectives* we were aiming for in court were just unachievable without the Cellebrite Pathfinder solution.”

Cellebrite Pathfinder

DS Limer told Gloucestershire Live – Online News: “It is a sophisticated operation which, with the right tools, can be simple…”

At this point, DS Harry Limer reached out to Cellebrite for a solution that could help review all the data that was retrieved during the investigation.

Cellebrite came and set up the Analytics solution. Within a few days, Cellebrite Pathfinder was able to surface the evidence needed by the court to convict the suspects.

“Within a short period of time, while using Cellebrite Pathfinder, we were able to achieve an entire review of the data that we obtained from the download. Now, instead of police officers working long hours for months, while having to increase our budgets for overtime, we were able to leave the software running over night to get results the following morning. A full database was created and ready to be analyzed, which helped to turn around what looked to be about 6 months of work into a matter of a few days”.

“Investigations with multiple mobile phones were causing me to have many sleepless nights before I used Cellebrite Solutions.”

“Even with tight budgets for police forces these days, I think Cellebrite solutions are fairly priced because they can save us literally hours, months and even years in some cases, reviewing data.”

Detective Sergeant Harry Limer, Gloucestershire Police

Cellebrite Physical Analyzer

Additionally, after uploading all the lawfully collected extractions into Cellebrite Physical Analyzer, they found that the way the conversations were loaded in alignment with the disclosure management document that sets the parameters of the data they need to specifically look at. “For example, Cellebrite Physical Analyzer packaged all of the chat spreads into one easy-to-read dialogue. If a suspect was using WhatsApp, Snapchat or Messenger, investigators could merge the conversations together into one thread, rather than needing to jump between apps or other digital channels” said DS Limer.

Sentencing

All suspects were sentenced to time behind bars for conspiracy to handle stolen goods

* The deadlines set by the court regarding disclosure under CPIA were simply not achievable within the time parameters.

To learn more about Cellebrite visit: Cellebrite.com

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