A ROMANIAN gang has been jailed for a total of ten years and three months after pickpocketing train commuters travelling from London to Gravesend.

The gang of five, who are all a part of the same family, stole more than £60,000 worth of property from commuters over a two-and-a-half year period.

Today, a judge at Blackfriar’s Crown Court ordered four of the five members be locked up.

Cornel Rostas, 22, of Springhead Road in Gravesend was sentenced to three years and three months in prison while Marin Rostas, 25, of Norfolk Road in Gravesend, was jailed for three years.

Robert Rostas, 23, of Norfolk Road, was locked up for 30 months and Romulas Rostas, 17, also of Norfolk Road, will spend 18 months behind bars.

A 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given a 12 month detention and training order.

All five men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal, four of them doing so on the fifth day of their trial.

The family’s activities came to light after an investigation by British Transport Police into an increasing trend of mobile phone thefts.

Investigating officer Detective Constable Tim Weekes said: “Typically this group operated on late night trains between Charing Cross and Gravesend.

“They would identify and target vulnerable passengers, who were sleeping or otherwise distracted, before stealing valuables from their pockets or bags, predominantly mobile phones.

“The group would then leave the train, with the victim usually only discovering the items missing some time later.”

On one occasion in January last year, a plain-clothes police officer witnessed Romulus Rostas sit next to a sleeping woman, even though the carriage he was in was virtually empty, and move towards her open handbag.

When police searched two Gravesend addresses, they uncovered a wealth of evidence including a number of mobile phones and SIM cards. It is believed the gang's profits were sent abroad to family in Romania.

Although police were unable to identify a legitimate source of income for the family in Gravesend, one gang member was able to afford a high-performance Audi saloon car.

Det Const Weekes, added: “The items we found indicated these men were agents involved in a highly-organised conspiracy to steal, aimed at generating as much money as possible to pass back to other family members in Romania to buy land and property.”