Can you help us locate £500,000 worth of plant machinery?

We are appealing for witnesses after scammers fraudulently ordered £500,000 of plant machinery by pretending to be a legitimate construction company.

Between Friday, 14 January and Friday, 21 January, three deliveries of plant machinery were carried out at three different locations across north Surrey. The items were delivered to addresses in Shepperton, Chertsey and Virginia Water, and then removed from the area. When the company who provided the machinery followed up with the groundworks company who they believed had ordered these items, they had no knowledge of it. The scammers had used their details to place the orders fraudulently.

The missing items include a three-tonne dumper swivel, a three-tonne hydraulic breaker, four ditching buckets, four loading buckets, and a 17-tonne excavator worth £185,000. The total value of items stolen is believed to amount to around £500,000.

We now need your help to recover these stolen items and identify those responsible. Photos are attached of some of the items, as well as two of the men believed to be involved in the fraudulent order and transportation of this machinery. Many of these items have the seller’s identifying marks. If you can help us identify these men or locate the stolen property, we want to hear from you.

We’re also interested in viewing any helmet or dashcam footage that may have captured these items being transported once they had been delivered. Please review your footage if you were:

Travelling from Fairview Drive through Shepperton on Friday, 14 January between 7.30am and 10am.

Travelling from Lyne Lane through Chertsey on Tuesday, 18 January between 10am and 2pm.

Travelling from Crown Road through Virginia Water on Friday, 21 January between 7.30am and 2pm.

Did you see a large amount of plant machinery being delivered or towed? If you have any information which could assist our investigation, please contact us quoting crime reference number PR/45220009947 via:

• Webchat on our website surrey.police.uk
• Online https://www.surrey.police.uk/ro/report/ocr/af/how-to-report-a-crime/
• Calling us on 101

If you do not wish to leave your name, please call the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.