Latest trend in vehicle thefts: Unlocked doors, keys inside

More than 7,000 stolen in 2015 in Central Florida

Beth Abrams went to grab something from her car Monday morning when she started to panic.

Her Honda Accord wasn’t sitting in the driveway. Neither was her husband’s Lexus. Down the block, she saw six or seven of her neighbors on Yale Street in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood waiting for the cops because their cars had also been ransacked.

“It definitely wasn’t the best way to start your week,” said Abrams’ husband, Randy, 37. “It was rough. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with criminals, they don’t care. They pick and choose targets that they think are the easiest to access, and unfortunately, our neighborhood is really easy to get in and out of.”

Despite new anti-theft technologies and security systems, hundreds of thousands of vehicles are swiped each year from unsuspecting owners who most often left keys in their unlocked cars for eager thieves, authorities say. Although others, including the Abrams, who locked their vehicles have also been targets. Last year, more than 7,000 vehicles were stolen in Central Florida alone, according to the Florida Depart-

ment of Law Enforcement.

Orange County ranks third in the state for stolen cars, and sheriff’s officials estimate up to 60 percent of all local thefts involve a key either found in an unlocked car or stolen during another crime, such as a home burglary.

And although the number of car thefts is down compared with the early 2000s, data released this week by the FBI shows the old-school crime has gone up.

Motor vehicle thefts across the U.S. increased 3.1 percent last year over 2014, for an estimated more than $4.9 billion in loses, according to the data released through the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

The national increase matches a trend seen in Florida earlier this year ,when state investigators released data showing about a 12.4 percent increase in the number of cars stolen in 2015. Almost 900 more vehicles were reported stolen just in Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Lake and Volusia counties in 2015 than in 2014.

Orange County sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Davis said the number of stolen car cases is nowhere near where it was when he first started investigating them 12 years ago. FDLE data shows thefts in Orange County have gradually declined from a high of 7,273 in 2002 and held steady for the past few years near 3,300. But in 2015, nearly 400 more cars were stolen.

Davis said anti-theft technology and proactive policing most likely helped drive those numbers down, but recently, detectives have started seeing a new trend: key-related thefts.

“There’s so many unlocked cars with keys left inside,” he said. “All you have to do is go to a parking lot and lift the unlocked handle.”

Central Florida also has seen an increase in burglaries from car dealerships, where thieves break into the building, grab keys and then drive the new vehicles right off the lot, Orlando police spokeswoman Michelle Guido said.

Davis said recovering the cars isn’t always hard, as many stay or end up in the same Orange County neighborhoods. Pine Hills is one of the hot spots, he said.

The thieves, who are often juveniles, typically take the stolen vehicles for a joy ride.

Guido said Orlando police detectives have seen a few cases recently where people leave their car on with the keys in it while they run into a convenience store. Within seconds, it’s gone.

“Don’t leave your vehicle running when you are going to be away from it,” Guido said. “Not even for a moment. Don’t make it easy for thieves to do what they do.”