Mohammed Isaq and his family ran the meet and greet car parking firm, where people could leave their car before jetting off on holiday from Manchester Airport. The operation, which was run from their home in Hale Barns, had a number of names and promised customers a "safe and secure" place to leave their cars.
However a police officer described seeing upwards of 500 cars parked on the site at various times. He said: "This was all run from a makeshift office in the back of a broken-down van and not very secure, some keys were housed here and easy to get at, the field had no CCTV and no security and the gates to the entrance were not secure in any way."
The site was visited by police in the aftermath of the burglary. CSI investigator Simon Bedford was of the view that the security was "insufficient", and was told that nothing had been captured on CCTV.