A GANG which included two Dudley men stole 84 off-road vehicles to be dismantled and shipped to the Middle East.

The gang targeted Toyota Hiace and Toyota Hilux vehicles and dismantled them, selling the engines and gearboxes to Dubai and the rest of the body shell for scrap in a £212,000 operation, Worcester Crown Court was told.

They carried out the raids across rural parts of Worcestershire and other areas of the Midlands as far north as Derbyshire from March 2012 to September 2013, Stefan Kolodynski, prosecuting, told the court.

The gang would spot a suitable vehicle and establish its location, breaking in at night to steal it from a garage or outbuilding.

An ignition barrel was used to bypass the locking system. The vehicles were initially taken to Torton Paddock in Droitwich Road, Kidderminster, a site owned by one of them, Rocky Butler, of Holly Hall, Dudley, for dismantling.

As the scale of the operation grew, the gang rented two sites on an industrial estate in Cannock, Mr Kolodynski said.

Butler was in touch with Yawar Jaffari, who was the contact for selling the engines and gearbox on to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where the equipment was sought after.

Jaffari would drive from his home in Walthamstow, London, and pick up the engine and gearbox in a van to sell on for around £1000.

The other members of the gang were involved at various times in stripping the parts from the cars and taking the shells to scrapyards.

Butler was arrested with two others in January, 2013, and after that he changed to a "managerial role" using a number of pay-as-you-go phones, Mr Kolodynski told the court.

Police pieced together the conspiracy over two years of painstaking work involving phone analysis and car registration details, he said.

The defendants all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal. They were either related of knew each other from growing up around the same area of Walsall in the West Midlands.

Recorder Robert Spencer-Bernard said the vehicles they stole belonged mainly to self-employed landscape gardeners, farmers, builders and other workers who needed them to carry tools to earn an honest living.

He said it was either greed or a complete disregard for others that had led the gang to target them.

At the "top of the tree" were Leslie Taylor, aged 35, of Coseley, West Midlands, 35-year-old Butler and James Bailey, aged 36, of Abingdon Way, Bloxwich, West Midlands, the judge said.

Butler and Bailey were each jailed for five years and four months and Taylor for four years.

His brother James Taylor, aged 26, of Goldsmith Road, Walsall, who played a lesser part, was jailed for 32 months.

The judge said Jaffari had offered the outlet to the Middle East and he was jailed for 45 months.

The four other members of the gang, who were involved in a much smaller number of thefts, were given lower sentences. Terence Gould, aged 47, of Botany Road, Walsall, Richard Edwards, aged 30, of Bradford Road, Dudley and 30-year-old Colin Brookes, of Hunter Crescent, Walsall, were each given two years and Paul Kendall, aged 42, of Irvine Road, Bloxwich, was given 16 months.