Following a complex investigation into a series of burglaries, two Romanian burglars who entered the UK illegally have been jailed for over seven years.
Ion Zaharia, 44, and Samir Barbulesteanu, 23, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday 13 January where they were jailed for over seven years.
Zaharia received a sentence of four years and three months, and Barbulesteanu received three years and six months.
The court heard that Cheshire Police launched ‘Operation Fabricated’ in direct response to a number of burglaries that occurred in the Warrington area of Cheshire, as well as in North Yorkshire and Merseyside between Wednesday 29 October and Monday 3 November 2025.
Whilst three of the four burglaries had been unsuccessful, officers found that a Silver Citroen C4 with French number plates had been in the vicinity of all the sites where the break-ins had occurred.
Following a burglary in Widnes that saw cash and gold jewellery stolen from inside, the C4 was also captured on ANPR cameras, leaving Cheshire in the direction of Yorkshire.
The officers working under Operation Fabricated, supported by colleagues from the Foreign National Offender Team and partners the Home Office Criminal and Financial Investigation Team, eventually traced the vehicle to a port in Harwich and uncovered that it had entered the UK a day prior to the first incident, Tuesday 28 October, with two men inside.
These two men were Zaharia and Barbulesteanu, who had been caught on CCTV footage entering a service station near to the port and fuelling up the car prior to its near 260-mile journey to Cheshire.
With the suspects now identified, officers launched arrest attempts for the two men.
On Tuesday 9 December, the pair were located at Birmingham Airport, attempting to flee the country. They were detained and arrested just moments before boarding a plane to Amsterdam and were found with cash and gold jewellery in their carry-on luggage.
Upon being returned to Cheshire by attending officers, the pair were interviewed in relation to the burglaries. They answered “no comment” to all questions put to them.
Once in court, however, both men pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit the burglary of a dwelling with the intent to steal.
Following the conclusion of their respective sentences, both men will be deported back to Romania.
Police Constable Hannah Barton, who led the investigation into the series, said: “It is apparent that Zaharia and Barbulesteanu entered the UK with one intention in mind: to burgle as many homes as possible and to flee undetected and without repercussions.
“Oftentimes when the pair struck, vulnerable and elderly residents were in the properties, and I can only imagine the fear they would have felt to have their homes broken into and their possessions rooted through and, in one instance, stolen.
“However, Zaharia and Barbulesteanu’s mission was unsuccessful. What did not help their case was that the vehicle they used to travel from each of the addresses across the north west stuck out considerably, thanks to its French number plate. It would only be a matter of time before we were able to connect this distinctive vehicle and them to the five addresses that they had forcibly accessed.
“With that in mind, I welcome the considerable sentence handed to both men. This result shows that we will not let offenders get away with depriving others of their personal possessions and that we will work swiftly to bring them to justice using the full extent of the law.”
