Airport raids show armed robbers target computer chips rather than security vans

Crime gangs are switching from hijacking security vans carrying cash to lorries transporting millions of pounds of computer chips.

A spate of robberies on vehicles leaving Heathrow airport has prompted the police to set up a covert operation against the armed raiders. In the most recent attack, this month, a lorry carrying £7m of computer equipment was hijacked as it left the airport.

Organised criminals are believed to be shipping many of the stolen computer chips to the Far East and Eastern Europe, where they are used in pirated hardware as part of a thriving black market. Other stolen goods are being sold via bogus companies on the internet.

The components are easy to smuggle – a suitcase could hold £500,000 worth of chips. Gangs are believed to be switching their attention to vehicles loaded with computers, microchips, and mobile phones, partly because the security surrounding them is lax compared with cash vans. The risk involved in attacking a cash van was shown last week when an robber was shot dead with his own gun in a scuffle with a guard during the attempted robbery of a Securicor van in Leytonstone, east London.

A police investigation, codenamed Operation Grafton, has been set up into the Heathrow raids by the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad, Thames Valley and Surrey police forces and Customs.

In January, thieves made off with computer chips believed to be worth more than £4.6m after a driver left his van unattended. The shipment of Pentium 4 chips, part of a consignment flown into Heathrow, was stolen after an American Airlines vehicle was left at a warehouse building in Hounslow, west London. A month earlier, robbers drilled through a wall in a cargo area at Heathrow and stole computer chips worth £3.5m. The chips had just arrived on a Korean Air jet and were scheduled for delivery to the computer firm Samsung.

Detective Chief Superintendent Sharon Kerr, the officer in charge of the investigation, said the raids were carried out by organised criminals who were concentrating on the "M4 corridor, in and around the Heathrow airport area".