Two thieves revealed how they can steal a keyless car in less than 20 seconds for a £5,000 fee, before mocking their victims.
The two men used just one device to unlock the vehicle and drive away in the clip filmed for Channel 4’s latest Dispatches programme, Britain’s Car Theft Gangs Exposed.
Thief ‘T’ and an accomplice demonstrated how they use an amplifier, which looks similar to a radio or walkie-talkie, to pick up the signal from the ‘key’ inside a home and use it to unlock a car parked outside.
The device works by scrambling the signal from a remote key fob, and was used in nearly 60 percent of car thefts in the UK last year.
The two men, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, demonstrated the technique on a car they claimed to have already stolen after placing the key fob in the living room of a property.
After just a few seconds of holding the amplifier outside the window, the car door unlocked, allowing T to simply open the door and start up the engine. Once the engine had started, the accomplice could take the amplifier, jump in the car and they drove off – with the entire theft taking less than 20 seconds.
The men then boasted of taking up to 20 vehicles a month for as much as £5,000 per car, depending on its value, and said up to 90 percent of them are stolen for parts.
Asked whether they ever feel bad about their actions T said: ‘These cars are insured, that’s like, that’s a first world problem. There’s bigger s*** going on out there, that’s, like… Your f***ing Range Rover’s gone, boo-hoo, go and buy another one, man.’
He added: ‘A lot of these cars are getting broken for parts. A lot of them are getting shipped out, Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece.’
The clip features as part of the Dispatches programme which reveals how organised gangs of criminals are stealing thousands of cars each year to then ship abroad, either for sale or, more commonly, to be ‘chopped’ – dismantled for parts.
After the vehicles are stolen, many are transported in shipping containers as national and international agencies battle to prevent as many as possible reaching their intended destinations.
NaVCIS agent Adam Gibson is seen discovering a container with three stolen cars – all with fake paperwork and crammed together with no concern for the vehicles’ condition.
A white pick-up truck from the bust bore a 2022 number plate – but Mr Gibson was able to determine it was actually made in 2023 and had been reported stolen from Kent in January.
He said: ‘This box is headed to Africa, which the roads out in Africa are obviously suited to this kind of thing.’
During a short timeframe Mr Gibson tracked down three containers, totalling 12 stolen vehicles – some of which had even been cut in half to make space for more cars.
He told how the value of vehicles stolen seems to be dropping while the volume is increasing: ‘Whereas we were finding Range Rover’s worth £150,000, we’re getting pickup trucks and SUVs worth £40,000 now.
‘We are seeing brands like Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Lexus. So the quality has dropped off, I suppose, but the volume has gone up.
‘Some gangs will literally gut the car of any personal effects. Others will just leave everything.
‘There’s kids seats, toys, all sorts of them… I’m constantly told by people that vehicle crime, where it’s victimless, it’s just the insurance companies.
‘Yes, the insurance company pay out, but we all get our premiums go up because the insurance aren’t going to absorb it. So it has a knock-on effect on everyone else.’
Data shows that a vehicle is currently stolen every four minutes, but crime agencies say they are taking stronger action to deter would-be thieves and reunite owners with their vehicles.
In 2021, NaVCIS, the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, recovered just 76 stolen cars – last year the figure had increased almost eight-fold to 589.
Some 130,000 car thefts were reported to the police in 2023/24, around two thirds of which were keyless.
Only three out of ten victims are ever reunited with their cars, while stolen vehicles go unsolved 90 percent of the time in London, Met figures show.
For many cars though, by the time police catch up to the gangs it is just too late.
The programme reveals how a blue Audi A4, fitted with a hidden tracker, was stolen from a woman’s driveway in north London on March 15.
The car’s GPS signal showed the Audi moving east towards the borough of Enfield and then switching off.
Days later the covert tracker wakes up and transmits the car’s coordinates, the Audi has travelled 30 miles east from North London to a location in the Essex countryside, just inside the M25, a place called Baldwins Farm.
Neil Thomas, a former police officer who works for a private track and recovery service for stolen vehicles, explained how Baldwins Farm is an excellent spot for the transit of cars.
‘The access in and out is quite restricted, it’s quite close to London, quite close the docks, so if you are exporting vehicles geographically it’s a really good location,’ he said.
The tracker appeared to show the Audi in a wooded area at the northern end of the site, near to what looks like shipping containers.
The site was surrounded by copious amounts of CCTV cameras and Dispatches soon discover that the tracker isn’t transmitting, possibly due to GPS jamming or blocking equipment.
Five weeks later, the tracker suddenly reappeared in Kaunas, Lithuania, and was tracked to a business in the outskirts of the city called Baltic Car Trade.
Dispatches filmed the police raid on the property, but instead of finding a blue Audi A4, all they found that was left of the vehicle was a bunch of wires.
The car, like many stolen off British streets, had been torn apart.
A National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesperson said: ‘Vehicle crime is ever-evolving with increased technology advancements in vehicles and continues to be a challenge for policing which we cannot tackle alone.
‘The National Vehicle Crime Working Group has brought together manufacturers, government and policing for a number of years now and the introduction of the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership (NVCRP), is another positive step forward in our fight against criminals.
‘Op Alliances was an intensification week which ran late last year between a number of law enforcement bodies and partner organisations which resulted in 180 arrests and the recovery of 316 stolen vehicles.
‘It was a great example of the impact of focused partnership working and it is so valuable we can continue this through the NVCRP.
‘Our fight has been strengthened with the latest Government legislation to stop the sale of devices like keyless repeaters and signal jammers which make life far too easy for criminals. Many of these devices serve no legitimate purpose, and we believe that they are involved in a large proportion of UK vehicle thefts, certainly in recent years.
‘Removing access to such devices is of course just one element of tackling vehicle theft, but one that we predict could have a significant impact. Disposal routes for stolen vehicles are also a key focus and we work closely with the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NAVCIS) to target ports which we know stolen vehicles have been moved through, as well as with police forces and colleagues in the NPCC metal theft portfolio to tackle so-called ‘chop shops’ .
‘We know that organised crime groups are responsible for a significant proportion of vehicle thefts and we are building on existing capability working with NaVCIS and Opal (National Intelligence Unit for Serious Organised Acquisitive Crime) so we can best use our resources to disrupt and target OCGs who profit from vehicle crime whilst causing misery for victims.
‘We continue to work with our stakeholders in government, enforcement agencies and industry to build our effectiveness.’
Britain’s Car Theft Gangs Exposed: Dispatches will air on Channel 4 at 8pm on June 19.
