Six men have been jailed for a total of 20 years over an international ring exporting millions of pounds worth of stolen luxury cars out of Britain.

The members of the organised crime gang shipped more than 120 stolen upmarket vehicles worth around £5million to northern Cyprus.

They got hold of high-end cars in the UK through identity fraud, insurance claims scams and by selling vehicles belonging to finance companies, police said.

Dervish Chaglar, 48, and Mert Isik, 29, then arranged for the stolen vehicles to be sold to an illicit market in northern Cyprus using their company 'Test Cars' as a cover.

Couriers drove the vehicles through Europe to northern Cyprus once the gang removed tracking devices, re-registered vehicles and used fake licence plates to avoid detection.

Over a 14-month period, the City of London Police seized a series of cars that were destined to be sold by the gang. These included two £80,000 Audi Q7s, two Range Rover Velars valued at £60,000 each, as well as a Range Rover Vogue, two BMW 5 series and a Mercedes AMG all said to worth £40,000 a piece.

In total, the police operation disrupted sales and seized around £800,000 in assets from the gang, City of London Police said.

Three of the gang were jailed last November and the remaining three were sentenced on Monday.

At Southwark Crown Court in November 2019, Chaglar, of Tower Hamlets, east London, was jailed for six years for conspiracy to handle stolen goods after being found guilty at trial.

And Isik, of Islington, was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiracy to handle stolen goods.

While fellow gang member Martin Woodhouse, 63, of Harrow, was jailed for six years for the theft of an Audi Q7 S Line and two Range Rover Velars.

At the same court this week Mansha Khan, 50, of Manchester, pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods and was sentenced to one year, suspended for two years, with 150 hours unpaid work.

Bradley Young, 40, of Barnet, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, with 150 hours unpaid work, for the theft of a Range Rover and fraud by false representation.

Ali Duman, 28, of Stoke Newington, was sentenced to 18 months, suspended for two years, with 150 hours unpaid work, for the theft of a Range Rover and fraud by false representation.

A seventh member of the crime group, Stephen Chromik, 60, of Buckinghamshire, pleaded guilty to stealing a Range Rover and is due to be sentenced next month.

Detective Constable Barry Butler, from the City of London Police, said: "Serious and organised crime is a huge risk to national and, in this case, international security. "By disrupting not only the gangs involved, but seizing their criminal assets and frustrating their funding, we have successfully removed an international illicit criminal market that, in all likelihood, was utilised by dangerous criminal groups in the UK.

"This operation, and the subsequent court results, would not have been possible without the hard work of the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS) gathering key evidence and the National Crime Agency, who assisted us greatly in all aspects of the investigation."