AMI Insurance is reporting that car thieves are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, adapting their methods to exploit new vehicle technologies. The insurer has received nearly 700 claims for vehicle theft and attempted theft in Auckland alone since the start of the year.
Wayne Tippet, AMI’s executive general manager of claims, noted that while the proportion of stolen keyless cars remains small, the trend highlights the ongoing adaptation of thieves to vehicle technology. “Now, keyless entry is, you know, super common,” he said. “So no surprise that, as technology changes, people looking to access those vehicles are also thinking about how they leverage technology to gain access to vehicles.”
While Auckland experienced the highest number of thefts, Canterbury and Waikato also saw a significant number of incidents. Tippet also cited the age of the vehicle as a contributing factor. “Those 20 years old now, 2005 to 2007 models appear to be the most common that thieves are looking at, and I think that relates to one; there’s a lot of them around, and two; they’re a little bit easier to enter in.”
Susie Gibbs, a Takapuna resident, recounted her experience of a recent break-in. “When we finally called the police, should have done that first, they told me that that’s what he would be doing, he was copying a key, he was able to copy a key by downloading my computer system,” she said. According to reports from overseas, thieves have been targeting car computers to copy electronic keys for use in unlocking or starting vehicles. Fortunately for Gibbs, the police stated that this was not the case in her incident.
Craig Draper, the director of Fredco Motors in Auckland, anticipates the emergence of even more advanced theft techniques. “These sort of crimes often start up in the Northern hemisphere, somewhere, and yeah, eventually they’ll whittle their way down here,” he said. “I have heard of instances of lots of Range Rovers, Land Rovers, Jaguars being stolen in the United Kingdom with cloned software, so the thieves are using pirated software, and they’re actually hooking into the vehicle and cloning the ignition keys, and stealing the car without literally breaking anything.”
The Toyota Aqua was the most frequently stolen vehicle in the country, followed by the Toyota Corolla and Nissan Tiida. Despite the rising sophistication of car theft, Tippet noted that there has been a 20 percent decrease in claims compared to the same period last year.
Police recommend that car owners always lock their vehicles, park in well-lit and secure locations, and consider installing professional alarm systems. However, Draper cautioned that even these measures might not be foolproof, as thieves continuously adapt to security measures. “Over the years we’ve had theft and we go, ‘what do we do,’ we put steering wheel locks on, or we put an alarm in, but …. alarms are part of a car now, but of course these thieves are clever enough that they’re actually getting around that problem.”
