Latest news with #vehiclecrime
CBS News
17-07-2025
- CBS News
Minneapolis police given warning after dozens of vehicles broken into over 3-day span
Police are searching for the culprits behind dozens of car break-ins around downtown and northeast Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Police Department says the break-ins happened overnight on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in the First and Second precincts. The following areas were affected by break-ins, according to Minneapolis police: Police say if your vehicle was damaged or broken into recently to report it immediately by either calling 911 or 311. Reports can also be made in person at your nearest precinct or online. Anyone who lives in one of the areas where the break-ins occurred is encouraged to check any security cameras or doorbell cameras that may have captured the incidents. If you find footage that may be related, police say to call 911 or 311, or to go to your nearest precinct to provide the footage to investigators. To prevent vehicle damage and break-ins, police say to report suspicious activity near vehicles to 911 immediately and to provide a description of individuals, including any license plates of any vehicles involved, and the direction of travel of those involved. People are encouraged to park in well-lit and busy areas, to always take their keys with them and to hide or take valuables with them, such as phones, bags or electronics.
The Sun
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- The Sun
Top 10 cars ‘most likely to be stolen in Britain' with FIVE from same brand on the list – is your motor at risk?
THE MOST stolen cars in the UK have been revealed and five of them are made by the same popular brand. Over one in 30 of one of the brand's models was stolen, prompting them to install anti-theft tech. 4 4 4 The Ford Fiesta is the most stolen car of 2024, with a staggering 4719 vehicles being stolen - according to data from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). However, the most likely car to get stolen actually belongs to another brand. Autocar crunched the numbers, using the stolen cars as a proportion of the total registered last year. According to them, the Lexus ES 300 was the most likely to be stolen vehicle in 2024, with one in 30 of the vehicles being stolen. Another Lexus made the top two of that list, with the Lexus RX 450 being the second most likely to be stolen car. Coming in third, one in three Mercedes GLS cars were stolen over the course of 2024. One in 39 Mercedes GLS were stolen. Lexus had five different models in the top ten list, with the LC 500 in fifth place, the UX 250 in six and the NX 300 in eight. A spokesperson for the Lexus brand - owned by Toyota - said that the brand has taken measures to prevent thefts. The spokesperson said: ' Toyota GB has invested millions of pounds in a variety of security solutions. Watch as thieves use high-tech trick to swipe Mercedes in under 20 secs - as devices used in 40% of thefts to be BANNED 'Our anti-theft measures form part of a nationwide customer care offering. 'For example, at a cost of more than £10 million to Lexus, selected customers were provided with a free Tracker vehicle location service. 'As a result, a 96% recovery rate has been achieved. 'We have subsequently rolled out Tracker installation as an option for buyers of certain models.' More than 61,000 cars were stolen in the UK throughout 2024. In sheer numbers, the Volkswagen Golf was the second most stolen car with 1,731 vehicles being stolen. The Ford Focus came in third with 1,700 being stolen in total. The most stolen cars of 2024 The DVLA has revealed which cars were amongst the most stolen in 2024. Over 61,000 vehicles were stolen over the course of the year, with one in particular being targeted. Ford Fiesta - 4,719 Volkswagen Golf - 1,946 Ford Focus - 1,855 Land Rover Discovery - 1,698 Toyota RAV4 - 1,452 BMW 3 Series - 1,415 Mercedes C Class - 1,233 Range Rover Evoque - 1,189 Nissan Juke - 1,136 Range Rover Sport - 1,032 The news comes after several drivers revealed a clever trick to stop thieves from pinching their vehicle. It costs just 99p to buy too. Driver Lucy Lewis revealed that she uses a strip of tin foil to wrap up her key. That prevents thieves from taking vehicles which have a button activation, as it prevents your own key from unlocking the vehicle from afar. The RAC added that a reusable metal tin is also an effective way of preventing your key being misused, as well as a dedicated car signal blocker. How to protect your car from thieves Wheel clamps are another great option that can prevent your car from being driven away. Again, they are highly visible as they are often sold in bright colours, and may deter opportunistic thieves looking for a quick and easy target. Traditional security measures are also considered when calculating insurance premiums. Rich Morley at Lancaster Insurance explains that, no matter what car you drive, classic or modern, traditional-style security measures can provide extra peace of mind and security for your vehicle, helping to deter thieves in the process. He added: 'When considering a risk profile, we will establish with customers any security measures they have in place to prevent potential theft." 4
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
Where does your stolen car end up? The parts of the world criminal gangs typically transport them to
Your stolen car could be halfway around the world in the blink of an eye as well-funded gangs have established a seamless supply network to ship pinched motors from the UK to various locations across the globe. And we can reveal the major routes organised criminal operations are typically taking to export stolen cars to different countries - with many of these vehicles ending up as far away as Africa. A new joint investigation by Thatcham Research and the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS) has laid bare for the first time the international scale of UK vehicle crime operations. It found that a motor stolen in the UK is most likely to end up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 38.5 per cent of robbed cars exported there. With geography a key factor, Congo's central positioning on the African continent, deep seaport, and borders with nine countries make it an ideal distribution hub for stolen vehicles. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the second most common destination (20.1 per cent), followed some way behind by Cyprus (6.7 per cent). Despite the UK having the highest levels of in-vehicle security - such as trackers and immobilisers - in the world, a vehicle is stolen every five minutes, based on 2024 data. Earlier this week This is Money revealed Britain's most targeted cars, with Lexus and Abarth the brands proportionally most likely to be pinched based on the volume of thefts against the number of available cars in the UK. The investigation found that Jamaica and Georgia were the fourth and fifth most popular export markets for car theft gangs between the years 2021 and 2024. Respectively, 5.7 per cent and 5.1 per cent of stolen UK cars ended up in these countries. The huge spike in motor crime and illegal exports is being driven by a number of wide-ranging factors, including the scarcity of vehicle parts, desirability of certain markets and models, geopolitical events, and even natural disasters. Geography might play a key role in Congo, but flooding in the UAE last April is believed to be behind the surge in thefts of SUVs, with criminal enterprises exploiting the shortage of official replacement vehicles and spare parts by using stolen motors to fill the void. Thatcham gives the example that dealerships of targeted brands were quoted three months for the delivery of a replacement vehicle whereas it can take a ship just 25 days to travel from London Gateway to Jevel Ali, south-west of Dubai. Cyprus, like Congo, has a geographical pull; it's a gateway country to other destinations for parts and vehicles which border the Mediterranean. Jamaica, on the other hand, has seen a rise in part due to the imposition of an imported car tariff, making criminal trade more profitable. And because both Cyprus and Jamaica drive on the left, the high standard specification of UK vehicles and the steering wheel position are key factors in these markets appearing third and fifth respectively. The investigation reveals the typical routes taken by criminal organisations shipping stolen cars around the world Georgia is one of the countries that's seen geopolitical factors have an impact on the illegal vehicle market. Heavy sanctions and withdrawal of an official presence by manufacturers in neighbouring Russia has seen an increase in demand for vehicles and parts, with Georgia a key destination for stolen cars. The conflict in the region has also altered the types of vehicles being stolen, with pickup trucks rising to 16.8 per cent of vehicles intercepted in 2024, up from 4.7 per cent the year before. Chief research and operations officer at Thatcham, Richard Billyeald commented: 'Parts scarcity, vehicle desirability, natural disasters and geopolitical events is driving an illegal market in a wide variety of luxury cars, SUVs and pickups, with insurers settling claims worth £640m in 2024. 'We will continue to work with vehicle makers to improve vehicle security and establish how to remotely disable stolen vehicles in a safe manner, as well as making stolen parts more difficult to reuse.' Investigators open up a shipping container at Felixstowe amid suspicions stolen cars are inside Dispatches: Britain's Car Theft Gangs Exposed is on Channel 4 On Thursday, a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary showed the NaVCIS action attempting to tackle illegal exports of stolen UK cars. This included the dramatic opening of a shipping container at a UK port, revealing three pick-up trucks inside which were intended to be smuggled to Africa. As Thatcham's research highlights, the Middle East and Africa have a huge market for second-hand car parts, driving the demand for stolen cars in the UK which is also linked to illegal drugs market. Adam Gibson, an officer of NaVCIS, a privately funded force working with the UK police, carried out the sting along with his team, where the stolen cars were found stacked on top of each other with falsified paperwork. Mr Gibson said: 'They've got £40,000 plus per car. That's not how you load them in a container. This box is headed to Africa, which the roads out in Africa are obviously suited to this kind of thing.' A white pick-up truck Mr Gibson found had a 2022 number plate - but he determined that it was actually made in 2023 and had been reported stolen from Kent in January. He continued: 'Whereas we were finding Range Rovers worth £150,000, we're getting pickup trucks and SUVs worth £40,000 now. Stolen cars are stacked in the containers, sometimes with five models inside Casual theft has disappeared but criminal gangs have taken over Thatcham said the rise in vehicle crime is the direct result of organised gangs operating criminal businesses for huge financial gain, which now far overshadows the volume of 'casual thefts' seen in Britain previously. Billyeald said: 'Casual thefts and joy riding of the 1980s and '90s has all but disappeared, with vehicle manufacturers having succeeded in making it very difficult for amateurs to steal modern vehicles. 'However, the organised criminal gangs who have replaced them are well-funded and sophisticated in their approach, combining specialist electronic equipment with an international logistics network.' He said that a collaborative approach needs to be established in order to take down these criminal operations. 'Raising vehicle security alone will not prevent thefts, we believe that beating these criminals requires cooperation between government agencies, vehicle manufacturers and ourselves to reduce the value of stolen assets and therefore the incentive to steal them,' he told us.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
How to prevent your vehicle from being stolen amid Canada's auto theft crisis
Andrew Hurtado was fast asleep in his Innisfil, Ont. home one night in March when his $70,000 2023 Toyota Tundra was stolen from his driveway. The thief quickly turned off Hurtado's car alarm before it had the chance to wake him. Police later found the vehicle in Scarborough, Ont., but not before it racked up $21,000 in damages. 'Now we are paranoid,' said Hurtado. 'There's definitely a trauma associated with this.' Auto theft has been a national problem in Canada for some time now, says Amanda Dean, vice-president of Ontario and Atlantic with the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), an association representing home, auto and business insurance companies. And it's not only the direct victims who pay the price. 'The more pressure that there is on claims, the more pressure there will then be on [insurance] premiums,' Dean said. 'We, as insurers, certainly want to work to keep those numbers down.' In Ontario, a particular hot spot for auto theft, the number of insurance claims has risen 165 per cent since 2017, and the costs to service those claims are up 538 per cent, new data from IBC reveal. In Toronto, where the large majority of vehicles are stolen, 63 per cent of residents 'live in fear' that their vehicle will be taken, the report says. Canada's top stolen vehicles include Toyota Highlander, Dodge Ram 1500 Series, Lexus RX Series, Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, according to Équité Association, a not-for-profit organization focused on insurance crime and fraud prevention. George Iny, president of the Automobile Protection Association, says Canada is still in an auto theft crisis because some vehicles are easy to steal, and historically, coordinated law enforcement efforts around auto theft were lacking — but have since improved. Drivers, in turn, are responding to the crisis by increasingly adding tracking devices onto their vehicles, says Matt Dillon, executive vice-president of operations at Magrath, Alta.-based Surex, an online insurance brokerage. Surex's own internal data show approximately six per cent of clients used a tracking device for commonly stolen cars last year. Now, it's seeing that figure increase to as high as 25 per cent. Iny recommends drivers specifically use a car tracking system offered by Montreal-based Tag. Tag's technicians install multiple, hard-to-find tracking systems throughout the car, which can be tracked anywhere in North America. The company will also etch its logo on the front driver's side and passenger side windows to further prevent theft. Iny also recommends an etching system by Longueuille, Que.–headquartered Sherlock Antitheft Marking. Sherlock etches a unique code onto multiple vehicle components. That code, which is associated with the vehicle identification number, is then stored in a secure database available to law enforcement, insurance company investigators and border service agencies. 'If I'm going to steal the vehicle for export to a West African country, that's not going to bother the person buying it,' Iny said. 'But if I was stealing it for parts or stealing it to resell inside Ontario, cloned as a different vehicle, then all those numbers would have to be removed. I won't bother. It's very time-consuming and it will show that somebody sanded off the numbers.' For better value, Iny recommends drivers get etching done at an auto glass shop. 'It will be cheaper than what the dealer sells,' he said. 'We see the dealers mark up products with a retail price of $400 to $2,000 or $1,500.' Iny is less enthusiastic about steering wheel locks, such as the Club, as a theft deterrent, calling them a secondary line of defence. 'It's one step above junk,' he says, adding that they can give a false sense of security and are inconvenient to use. While a thief might not be able to cut the lock, they can cut the steering wheel, Iny says. Still, if a thief is targeting a specific make or model and sees three parked on the same street, they might skip the one with a steering wheel lock. For drivers whose vehicles are stolen just three or four weeks after purchase, it likely means they're being watched, Iny warns. 'It's an argument in favour of buying something that people don't want to steal as much, rather than buying the same thing next time,' he said. 'Emotionally, we want to replace what we lost, so that tends to be what we do, but it's not necessarily the most rational solution if you're being targeted.' While Hurtado had set up Toyota-specific tracking systems, the thieves quickly deactivated them. After his vehicle was recovered, he turned to the aftermarket and installed Tag's anti-theft system, with some assurance that it offers better protection. Sign in to access your portfolio
