14 hours ago
The hi-tech crime gangs who can ship a stolen car abroad in hours
A surge in car thefts is being driven by organised crime groups using £20,000 high-tech devices to unlock vehicles that are then exported within hours, experts have warned.
A lack of checks at ports means stolen cars are shipped abroad, increasingly appearing in Russia, where legitimate supplies are blocked by sanctions.
In a report, the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), a defence and security think tank, has recommended the creation of a national body to investigate car theft and recover vehicles shipped overseas.
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Elijah Glantz, the report's lead researcher, said organised crime groups had 'shopping lists' of makes and models, and vehicle-specific technology to bypass security systems. The gangs carry out identity and document fraud to secure leases or loans on desired cars before altering the vehicles' identities to resell them.
Research by Rusi found a 75 per cent rise in car thefts, with rates increasing from 2.71 to 4.42 cases per 1,000 privately owned cars between 2014 and 2023 — the most significant increase since the 1990s, when the introduction of immobilisers led to a massive reduction.
While 'joyriders' were once behind many thefts, the costs of the devices required to bypass modern security systems mean they have been replaced by organised criminals. Sellers in Poland and Bulgaria advertise devices to bypass the security of high-end makes including BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus, Porsche and Lamborghini.
The report, published on Thursday, says: 'The speed at which vehicles can be taken, their identities masked or changed and subsequently sold — as a whole or in parts — speaks to a more streamlined criminal landscape.'
One police investigator said a vehicle could be shipped abroad with cloned number plates before the owner had been able to report it stolen.
'Port security remains problematic, characterised by a disproportionate focus on imports and inability to forensically examine exported vehicles and their parts,' the report says. 'The fixation on import controls leaves UK exports vulnerable, allowing millions of pounds' worth of stolen vehicles to flow undetected across the borders.'
There has been a marked increase in stolen vehicles being tracked to Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Demand for stolen cars in Georgia and Azerbaijan may be fuelled by demand from Russia as a result of sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
'Examples have emerged of vehicles vanishing from UK streets and reappearing in Moscow,' says the report. 'Vehicle theft in the UK represents a perfect storm of increasing domestic and international demand, compounded and exploited by innovative and organised criminals.'
The National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service and Thatcham Research reported last week that the DRC is the most popular destination for stolen UK cars, accounting for 38.5 per cent of those traced abroad. A fifth were tracked to the UAE.
While the number of stolen cars is increasing, police have been 'collapsing' their vehicle theft investigation teams. Forces such as the Metropolitan Police, which once had almost 100 vehicle crime investigators, have had their numbers dwindle to only a handful, says the report.
