CAR THIEVES JAILED OVER $4.7m HIGH-TECH CRIME SPREE IN UK
▶ Gang of four admit to hijacking security signals to steal more than 50 luxury vehicles
Criminals used a “master” remote control to hijack the signals needed to steal dozens of luxury vehicles from some of England’s most affluent areas, a court heard.
Four men stole 53 cars, worth a total of £3.7 million ($4.7 million) using technology that copied and sent the signal from a key fob inside an owner’s home to their vehicle near by.
Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Land Rover and Range Rover models were among the cars stolen in the gang’s year-long spree from addresses across the southeast of England.
At Guildford Crown Court in Surrey on Friday, Perry Lovejoy, 29; Luke Jackson, 28; Billy Harrison, 30; and Harry Sales, 28, were jailed for between three and three and a half years after admitting to the thefts.
Police said they built up a picture of how the gang gained entry to the cars using a so-called relay attack.
Typically, two devices were used: one close to the car and the other near the house, where the key fob is stored. The signal is detected, copied and relayed from the fob to the car’s computer, allowing it to be taken.
In video released by police, two men in balaclavas are seen in the driveway of a house, one holding a receiver in the air and the other clutching the device.
They run away once the signal has been detected.
Another masked man holding a second device is at the side of the house where the owner’s Bentley is parked.
The car’s lights can be seen flashing as it is unlocked.
The man jumps in, reversing the vehicle through the wooden gate and hitting a tree while making a getaway.
A manual for a relay was found on a mobile phone among Lovejoy’s possessions.
Officers arrested the men in April last year after building a picture of their activities using sources including tip-offs, forensics and witness testimony.
“The level of criminality that these four people undertook was significant and had a huge financial impact,” said Detective Constable Matt Earl of Surrey Police.
“These men acted out of pure greed and had no regard for how their crimes may affect the lives of their victims.”
Reports suggested the signal
relay devices can be bought for as little as £100.
Technical experts said car owners can frustrate relay thefts by keeping their key in a protective wallet – or even in the fridge – at home, shielding it from attacks.
UK figures showed that keyless entry is the most common method used to steal cars, accounting for 36 per cent of all thefts in 2020, the latest year when data is available.
That was up from only 13 per cent in 2019, accounting for 33 per cent of all vehicle thefts.
That year, 20 per cent of thefts involved forcing a lock, while 18 per cent resulted from a broken window.
Both these methods of theft
were less common the following year – at 14 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively.
Statistics from the UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency suggest about one in every 100 Land Rovers in circulation was stolen in the year to last March.
Figures showed that Land Rovers were three times more likely to be stolen than the second most popular target for thieves, Mercedes-Benz.
Among the 896,948 licensed Land Rovers in the UK, 8,284 were reported as stolen during the period, 924 thefts for every 100,000.
Six of the top 10 most stolen models are made by Land Rover, with the Range Rover Velar R-Dyn found to be the most popular with thieves.
This means that the marque is reportedly now becoming impossible to insure in some areas of London.
An investigation by The Independent found only two providers offered to insure the car for less than £20,000 a year to a 35-year-old woman living in Zone 4 around central London
with six years’ driving experience and no claims.
Manufacturers have responded. In 2019, Ford improved keyless entry technology in new Fiesta and Focus models to make them harder to steal.
This triggers sleep mode after a key fob has been stationary for more than 40 seconds.
While it is in sleep mode the key does not respond to any attempts to hack the signal. It can be “woken” by picking it up and moving it.
Last year, Jaguar Land Rover announced it was contacting thousands of its customers to upgrade their car’s security.
JLR, which is a subsidiary of the Indian car maker Tata Motors, planned to update the security systems of a variety of Land Rover and Jaguar models made between 2018 to 2022.
“JLR vehicles from 2022 onwards – Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Defender, Jaguar F Pace – are equipped with the latest security features and are proving very resilient to theft,” a company official said.
“We are continuing to roll out
a programme to enhance the security of models from 2018 onwards and already tens of thousands of eligible vehicles have received software updates through their retailer, to provide the latest vehicle security.”
It is believed the upgrades involve making the codes and frequencies less vulnerable.
However, JLR is reluctant to share details.
Vehicle-related thefts have fallen in recent years, to 400,000 last year from a high of 4.3 million in 1993 – as those involving physical methods like broken windows, locks and forced doors are less common.
Yet the targeting of higher end vehicles has raised the costs of driving.
UK car insurance has soared in recent years, rising by more than a third since 2020, largely driven by rises in costs of repairs due to inflation.
The average price of insurance for Range Rovers goes from about £1,126 a year for a Sport HSE TD6 to around £2,547 for a Sport HSE Dynamic SDV6 306.
The theft of luxury cars is a big criminal enterprise in the UK, and owners are being asked by insurers to pay heavily for cover