Dozens of homes and businesses were raided as a new specialist police squad targeted West Yorkshire's £20 million underworld trade in stolen cars.

In Bradford, officers swooped on car thieves as well as those suspected of buying and selling the stolen high-performance vehicles.

In all, 26 homes were searched. And at one commercial premises, a search is still going on.

Fourteen people were arrested, and three people charged in connection with the theft of motor vehicles. Items seized during the raids included cash, stolen motorbikes, CS gas canisters and mobile phones.

Yesterday was the first assault against the illegal networks which initially see burglars stealing car keys in order to take valuable cars from their owners' driveways. The vehicles then often have their number plates changed to match an identical existing model before it is sold.

While some buyers are unaware of the highly profitable scam, criminals such as drug dealers can pay as little as £500 for a £30,000 BMW, drive it for a year and then simply dump it or sell it on.

Senior officers launched the squad after revealing how the rising trend in break-ins for car keys - known in police terms as 'Hanoi' burglaries and named after the first police investigation into this problem - accounted for £20 million of car thefts in West Yorkshire over just a year.

Following a series of dawn raids on alleged burglars, police turned their attention to suspected traders in the afternoon.

At 2pm four van loads of police, supported by anti-Hanoi detectives, arrived at one garage business in Manningham.

Detective Constable Max Jowell explained: "The building contains a large amount of broken-up car parts as well as vehicles in various states of repair." A number of other cars stood parked around the two-storey workshop.

Det Con Jowell said that his team, along with the West Yorkshire Stolen Vehicle Squad, were examining the property to establish if any was stolen.