£5 BAG COULD SAVE YOUR BIKE
Keyless ignition systems may be the future but thieves love them
Police say there are 49 bike-related crimes a day reported in London, which roughly divide into two main categories: the infamous moped crime, often involving robbery, vandalism and violence. And bike thefts, where machines are bundled into vans or, increasingly commonly, ridden away. You might think complex electronics would make modern bikes harder to steal. In fact, it’s the opposite, according to forensic vehicle crime expert Dennis King. “Electronic manipulation started with hacking into the bike’s system via the onboard diagnostic (OBD) plug,” he says. “These are usually used by dealers to detect faults and must be in an easily accessible position on a bike; under the seat or in a headlight, for example. But with the advent of keyless ignition on bikes, the thieves don’t even need to do that. They can scan the signal, and then replicate it to start the bike.”
If you have a keyless bike, the solution is to keep your ‘keys’ in a Faraday bag, which prevents the scanner from reading it.
“The bags are only £4.99 on eBay, but how many people will use them?” asks King. “With more bikes going keyless it’s only going to get worse.”
DC Mike Pilbeam adds: “It’s as important as ever to use oldfashioned security: locks and chains, hidden immobilisers, alarms.”
Once the bikes have been stolen, they’re quickly moved on in the UK in private sales or via dealers. While many are broken up and sent abroad.
“Lithuania is a big destination at the moment,” says Pilbeam. “The trouble is their laws and ours don’t interact. Over here, handling stolen goods is a serious crime. In Lithuania you just get a fine so the police can’t do much. We know bikes are being shipped out to Africa, Cyprus, Pakistan. Trinidad and Tobago is another hot spot. They have a huge vehicle import tax, but if you import parts it’s negligible. We recently intercepted four BMW S1000RRs headed there out of a batch of eight stolen bikes. They were broken up and destined for separate addresses where they could then be put together again.”
‘They scan the signal and replicate it to start the bike’ FORENSIC CRIME EXPERT DENNIS KING