Thieves steal a car parked on the owner’s driveway in just 23 seconds by tricking the vehicle’s keyless entry system.
The rapid raid in Billericay, Essex, was captured on CCTV and showed the brazen crooks pinching the BMW just yards from a front door.
The shocking footage, taken early yesterday morning at 12.40am, shows one man holding a device that looks like a set-top box up to the wall of the house.
As he moves it around, it picks up signals from the car’s keyfob inside in seconds, and it then transmits it to his accomplice waiting next to the driver’s door.
The car’s systems are then tricked into thinking the key was present, and in less than 30 seconds, the two men climb inside and drive away.
Victim Danny Talbot shared the footage online after discovering his motor had been taken.
He said: ‘Anyone got keyless go and make sure you double click the lock button or put keys in a metal box, apparently this deactivates the key.
‘The funny thing was I walked the dog this morning and didn’t even notice it had been stolen.
‘Had shower and walked outside thinking I had memory loss again leaving car down pub, but then realised I never went out last night.’
The raid comes amid a surge in the number of vehicle thefts, which have jumped by more than half last year, which have been blamed on keyless technology.
A total of 89,000 vehicles were stolen in England and Wales last year, the equivalent of ten every hour, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a 56 per cent rise in just 12 months, up from 57,000 in 2016.
It is the highest number since the year to March 2012.
In a damning indictment of how easy it has become for criminals to steal cars, the ONS said in almost half of thefts, they are ‘entering the vehicle through an unlocked door’.
Motoring campaigners and police said this showed hacking into keyless cars had become the new modus operandi of ‘digitally savvy thieves’.
The signals can travel through buildings, meaning thieves can open cars without needing to break into properties to steal keys.
‘Vehicle-related theft’ – which also includes items stolen from vehicles and attempted thefts – rose by almost a fifth from 796,000 in 2016 to 929,000 last year.
Of the 44 police forces in England and Wales, all but two saw an increase in vehicle crime.
The figures appear to undermine claims from manufacturers that modern cars are more secure than ever.
Source: Daily Mail UK