A LATVIAN man from Wisbech has been found guilty of involvement in 82 burglaries across three counties.

Oskar Beitans, 25, of Victoria Road, Wisbech, denied conspiracy to burgle but was found guilty after a two and a half week trial. He was jailed for 10 years.

The judge told Beitans- and a second Latvian convicted with him- that they had cast a “dark shadow” over their community.

The trial at Norwich Crown Court heard how over a three-and-a-half month period Beitans and Juijs Kazacoks, 23, of Kings Lynn, were part of a gang which fanned out from the Wisbech area acting in what the judge described as like a “plague of locusts”.

They targeted homes of elderly people living in bungalows and stealing valuables, mainly cash and jewellery. The total value of the burglary haul was estimated at �160,000.

Sentencing them, Judge Nicholas Coleman said the men had played an equal part in the crimes. Kazacoks was jailed for seven years.

He told them: “Your conduct and that of your friends who have admitted their guilt has in my judgment cast a dark shadow over the reputation of the people of Latvia, who are good, honest citizens who come to this country genuinely intending to better themselves.”

He said on one night alone on September 13 they had carried out a series of burglaries around Bury St Edmunds and Mildenhall area and he said they were like “marauding thieves”.

Judge Coleman described them as “marauding thieves” and it is “impossible to do justice to the misery you caused.”