DETECTIVES investigating an elaborate £250,000 vehicle theft scam across the region have arrested six people.

About 60 officers carried out a series of raids on homes in Hartlepool town centre yesterday morning in connection with more than 35 incidents of commercial break-ins and vehicle theft.

Officers from Cleveland Police carried out the raids, under the auspices of Operation Sabre, but the offences occurred as far north as Gosforth, in Newcastle, and as far south as Leeds, West Yorkshire. Six people were arrested, including a mother and her son, and all were being questioned at Peterlee Police Station yesterday.

Officers were still hunting for a seventh suspect last night.

Detective Inspector Dave Wolfe, of Durham Police, who is leading the inquiry, said the arrests followed an exhaustive investigation across the region in the past two years.

"It's been going on over a two-year period and we are pretty sure that it's the same people responsible for the offences - we have various forms of evidence, from forensic to CCTV," he said.

"It involves a variation of offences, but the most common type of offence was burglaries of commercial premises, such as council depots and building sites.

"The gang simply wore reflective jackets and walked into sites full of confidence.

"They would walk into portable buildings and take vehicle keys, then go outside and take the vehicles."

He added: "The whole thing about this gang was their confidence. They were not going in the dead of night, trying to cut barriers down and get past alarms. They were going in during the day."

Det Insp Wolfe said that, on some occasions, suspicious workers stopped the conmen and asked them what they were doing, but the suspects either managed to pull it off with sheer confidence and bluff, or verbal threats.

However, he said there was never any direct violence involved.

Among the vehicles and equipment taken were workers' cars, including a range of sports cars, big generators and small site equipment.

He said one line of inquiry that detectives were following was the possibility that all of the vehicles were stolen to order, adding that commercial and industrial equipment was very easy to sell on.

And in some cases, he said, police were aware that some vehicles had been "ringed" and sold on with different chassis numbers and registration plates.

All of the six arrested yesterday, five men and one woman, were aged between 21 and 40. Their homes were being searched by detectives yesterday.