Milton Keynes insider stole £1m in car parts over 2 years: is your workplace safe from the same?

Late-night listings, missing crates, and a trusted hand—Milton Keynes staff sensed trouble long before detectives stepped inside.

When stock anomalies kept appearing at a parts distribution centre, managers followed a digital paper trail that pointed them to an online marketplace and, eventually, straight back to one of their longest-serving employees.

How the scheme unfolded

Investigators say a parts distribution hub in Milton Keynes began noticing unexplained shortages and irregularities in inventory. A string of listings on eBay, which appeared to match specific items and quantities, raised suspicion. The account behind those sales traced back to a familiar name: 42-year-old employee Konrad Labinski.

Staff and security teams coordinated with Thames Valley Police to monitor movements and secure evidence. Officers detained Labinski at work while he attempted to remove further stock. A search of his home address in Padstowe Avenue led to the discovery of more than 1,000 boxed and loose parts, many with original labels intact.

Police recovered an estimated £1m worth of components, believed to have been siphoned from the warehouse over about two years.

The investigation that moved quickly

Detective Constable Vince Higgins, from Milton Keynes CID, said the case progressed at pace once the online sales were linked to the internal losses. Officers aimed to catch the suspect in possession of company goods to strengthen the evidential chain. Labinski was immediately remanded following his arrest, reflecting how seriously courts treat theft committed by an employee in a position of trust.

During a formal interview, Labinski gave no comment. Faced with extensive warehouse records, shipping histories, and items seized at his property, he later pleaded guilty to theft by employee. The court sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment. The company recovered the stock and the police returned it to the rightful owner.

He worked for the firm for more than 20 years. Detectives say the breach of trust aggravated the offence.

Key facts at a glance

What the court’s decision means

Employee theft cases in England and Wales often fall under the Theft Act 1968. When a worker abuses access to stock, the court considers the breach of trust, planning, duration, and the value taken. Here, prosecutors set out a persistent pattern, high-value losses, and a calculated resale method using an online marketplace.

Immediate remand after arrest is unusual in low-value thefts, but more common when trust is central to the offending, and the risk of interference with evidence is a concern. The two-year term signals that warehouse and logistics theft at scale attracts meaningful custody, particularly when the losses breach six figures and span months or years.

Inside the alleged resale method

Investigators followed product codes, batch numbers, and internal ordering data. Listings on eBay mirrored the precise parts that were disappearing. Matching photographs and descriptions helped to tighten the link. Once the account holder’s identity aligned with the employee details, police moved to secure both the workplace and the home address to prevent further losses.

The volume of boxed components found at the property suggests a mix of quick-turnover items and hard-to-source parts with strong demand online. High-value automotive components—such as sensors, control modules, clutches, and headlight assemblies—are attractive to resellers because they’re easy to ship and fetch steady prices.

Red flags companies can watch for

• Repeated inventory discrepancies clustered around a single shift, bay, or picker ID.
• Online listings that mirror your SKUs, part numbers, or product photos.
• Unusual use of packaging areas, especially after hours or during handovers.
• Frequent returns or voids on internal systems that lack clear justification.
• Staff using personal vehicles in loading zones without prior approval.

How firms can strengthen controls today

Warehouses can reduce risk by tightening segregation of duties, introducing blind counts, and limiting access to high-value items. Randomised audits, cycle counts focused on at-risk categories, and secure cages for fast-moving components make theft harder to conceal. Digital oversight helps too: reconcile dispatch logs with CCTV time stamps, and flag mismatches for same-day checks.

Human factors matter. Long tenure builds expertise and trust, but it can also create blind spots. Regular rotation of responsibilities, mandatory holidays for staff in sensitive roles, and whistleblowing channels give managers a better chance of spotting unusual patterns. Training supervisors to query small anomalies early often prevents larger losses later.

Legal and financial aftermath

Beyond prison terms, courts may impose confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act. That can target sales proceeds, equipment used to facilitate the crime, and any identifiable benefit. Insurers may cover part of the loss, but policies usually demand robust security procedures and prompt reporting. Where stock is recovered, firms still face disruption costs, reputational damage, and time spent rebuilding controls.

Large recoveries do not erase the ripple effects: cancelled orders, customer complaints, and staff morale can suffer for months.

Why this case affects you

Large depots and small workshops face similar vulnerabilities. The combination of easy shipping, online marketplaces, and well-organised storerooms creates fertile ground for insider theft. If a single employee can move £1m in parts over two years, any operation with fragmented oversight could face comparable risks without realising it.

A practical first step is to run a quick test: pick ten top-value SKUs, pull two years of stock movement, and compare recorded despatches with supplier invoices and customer orders. Any recurring gap suggests exactly where to concentrate audits, cameras, and access controls.

A quick self-check for managers

• Do you reconcile e-commerce listings and auction sites against your unique SKUs weekly?
• Can you identify who last handled each high-value part within five minutes?
• When did you last rotate duties in goods-out and returns processing?
• Are after-hours entries and loading bay sensor logs reviewed the next day?
• Does your whistleblowing policy allow anonymous, off-site reporting?

For readers working in logistics, this case underlines the value of layered defences. Combine physical barriers with data analytics that flag outliers by employee ID, shift, and product category. Even a modest rules engine—alerting when returns spike beyond a weekly baseline—can surface behaviour that merits a closer look. For employees, the message is stark: breaches of trust carry heavy personal consequences, including the loss of career, benefits, and liberty.

For those considering compliance upgrades, start with a small pilot: a two-week cycle count on the 50 highest-value parts, enhanced sign-off for after-hours access, and a standing daily review of marketplace listings for matches to your SKUs. Measure results, refine thresholds, and then scale. Incremental changes, applied consistently, tend to deliver the fastest gains in control without paralysing operations.