Secret device tracks stolen car
A luxury sports car worth £100,000 has been recovered using a covert device after being stolen from a repair centre in Birmingham, despite having its telematics device removed and fitted with a cloned licence plate.
The Porsche 911 was in a Birmingham repair centre on Friday, 27 September. CCTV evidence shows the car was stolen that night at 9:47pm, along with three other prestige vehicles. The car’s telematics device and local CCTV showed the cars entering a dump site in the Birmingham area just 10 minutes later. There, the conventional telematics device was expertly removed, and the licence plates changed, making the car almost impossible to trace.
Using the covert device still in place, and alongside its team of data experts and former police officers, theft experts Asset Protection Unit (APU) located the car stashed in a hotel car park in Coventry just two days later.
Neil Thomas, director of investigation at APU, said, ‘This latest incident is worrying evidence of thieves becoming increasingly savvy. When organised gangs of thieves go to these lengths it can make tracking and recovering the vehicles almost impossible. Luckily for the owners, the recovery represents a rare victory against theft of this type, thanks to some of the technology fitted. This shows that motorists can’t be too careful with how they secure their car.’
No arrests have been made to date but APU is working with the police to identify the culprits.
