A BUSINESSMAN who shipped a quarter of a million pounds worth of stolen high-performance cars to North Africa was jailed for three years on Friday.

Abulwahid Khamis, who originally came to the UK in the 1990s but was denied asylum, played a leading role in the car-ringing scam.

His legitimate business of exporting domestic appliances to Tanzania gave him the knowledge of how to organise shipping containers.

But Maidstone Crown Court heard the 27-year-old had not banked on the suspicions of a shipping clerk at Felixstowe who, spotting discrepancies in his paperwork, alerted Special Branch.

Khamis admitted five charges of receiving stolen goods and asked for a further six similar offences to be taken into consideration.

Jailing him for three years concurrent on each charge Judge Jeremy Carey said: "You succumb to making fatter profits by criminal means and today’s the day when you must take the consequences for that decision."

The vehicles targetted included Range Rovers, a Mercedes and a Porsche, and had a total value of £250,000. All were stolen during burglaries at homes in Kent, Essex and the Metropolitan police areas this year.

Within days of each theft Khamis was organising the shipping containers, using a company based in Leyton and giving the name "Jeff".

But in June shipping clerk Leanne Bucknall became suspicious when the cargo for a container heading to Mombasa was described as a used car worth £1,800.

"She became suspicious because the car was only two years old," said Edmund Fowler, prosecuting. "So she contacted Special Banch at Felixstowe as well as querying for herself the value of the car. Then, on a second shipping note the value had changed to £15,000."

The following day police went to the port and the container was examined. Inside was a Range Rover which had been stolen during a burglary in Sevenoaks less than a fortnight earlier. The car, which was worth £35,000, was bearing false plates.

Another container ordered by "Jeff" was also examined and inside was a £45,000 Porsche which had been stolen in Golders Green, North London. Inside a third container police found five motorcycles, a Volvo and a Toyota Landcruiser. The corresponding shipping note listed its contents as domestic appliances.

Another intercepted container revealed a Mercedes and an Iveco pick-up truck.

Khamis, of Boultwood Road, Beckton, East London, was arrested in July following a police surveillance opertaion.

The court heard he had been living in this country under a false identity after his asylum application was rejected. Khamis was given a date for his deportation but failed to turn up at Heathrow Airport. However, he settled into a job for a plastics company and eventually bought his own home and married last year.

Khamis went on to set up his own export business, dealing in white goods and then insurance "write-off" cars that he bought at auction and had repaired. It was his involvement in this line of work that led to the car-ringing scam, said Rajeev Shetty, defending.

"But he did not know that these vehicles were coming from burglaries," he added. "He was ignorant of that particular fact. He believed the vehicles may have been stolen from commercial garages."

Mr Sheety said Khamis originally fled Tanzania where he had been handing out leaflets supporting the opposing political party. By being jailed and then subsequently deported he will have suffered "a double-whammy".

Passing sentence Judge Carey said it made little difference that Khamis didn’t know precisely where the vehicles came from.

"You fully understood you were part of a sophisticated criminal organisation and you took a leading role," he added.

At the end of the hearing Judge Carey commended Leanne Bucknell for her "powers of observation and good sense". He also commended the officers in the case.