Gangs buy haulage firms to steal lorryloads of goods

After Alison's firm was targeted, the officers working on her case told her police were also investigating similar crimes in other parts of the UK.

Alison's haulage firm, which moves millions of pounds around the country each year, subcontracted to a smaller transport company for a job earlier this year. She says she sometimes does this when her lorries are busy or in the wrong place.

"Their insurance was in place, their operators' licence was in place," she says. "It looked great." The lorry arrived at the manufacturing company, a forklift truck loaded it up with DIY products and the lorry drove off, she says.

But unknown to Alison and the manufacturers, the lorry had been using fake number plates. It disappeared with the cargo worth £75,000.

"The first we knew about it was the destination company rang us and said, 'where's our load gone?'" Alison says. She tried to ring the subcontractor, but the number had been disconnected.

We have no reason to believe he was involved in crime, and dozens of people on social media paid tribute to him as a good man who helped others in the industry.

The former owners of several of the transport companies said they had dealt not with Mr Calin, but with a man called "Benny". So who was he?

We found him by investigating the director of Zus Transport named in Companies House records, a Romanian woman. Information about her is scarce, but we found a phone number for her. When we searched for the number in WhatsApp, it showed a profile picture of a young woman, with a different name, in a Lamborghini.

The profile picture helped us identify her as a relative of Mr Calin, and the wife of a man named Benjamin Mustata. Mr Mustata and his wife had posed for a photo when collecting a Lamborghini from a dealership in April, a week after the theft targeting Alison's company.

When we showed images from social media of Mr Mustata to a former owner of one of the transport companies, he identified him as "Benny" - the man he had met face-to-face to negotiate the sale of the company.

A phone number Mr Mustata used in 2023 to rent a property in Coventry was also used to arrange collection of the goods stolen by the subcontractors who scammed Alison. The same number had also been used by "Benny" to buy one of the transport companies using Robert Calin's name and bank details.

When we went to Mr Mustata's address to deliver a letter with questions about his suspected involvement in the theft, we were told he had moved to Romania.

That was false. We tracked him down to Coventry, where he was selling luxury cars. Asked about Zus Transport, Mr Mustata said: "Go away." He denied using a dead man's identity to buy haulage companies and using Zus Transport to steal goods.

He admitted buying Zus Transport, but said he did so on behalf of a relative and was not in control of the company at the time of the theft.