The day the feds came knocking...an old story...

[Housey]

From a few years back when some criminals attached a tracking device to my RS4 so they could follow me, find out where I lived, break in to steal my keys and in turn my car. Luckily even though they tried on two occasions to locate my car they failed and the police got to them first! I was just looking through my old photos and found these from the day we found the device.

Hmmm, look officer, that wheel arch liner looks a bit odd....

Let's have a look....hmmmm, whats that little box then?

In all it's glory!

And the device itself...

The reason the police came to me is they raided a premise, found some cars and some laptops and on said laptops some cars being tracked, one of which was mine. I knew this all along, could not say at the time and also know what happened in the end (4 x people sent down) but it was a scary thing.

 

[roccles]

Thats crazy the lengths some scumbags will go to, so glad that they never found your address.

 

[Akagi]

Cool story bro.

Meant sincerely for once!

 

[Rroff]

I suspect the device was also or even possibly primarily there so they could follow you/locate you easily to try and ambush/mug you at a convenient out of the way location. Pretty scary.

 

[Housey]

Thats crazy the lengths some scumbags will go to, so glad that they never found your address.

It is very difficult to get to where I live if you don't know where I live. Tax Evader and Gibbo can confirm this and I know that the criminals tried to get to me twice and on both occasions one of my neighbours spotted them on the driveway which is around 1/2 a mile long and they were parked with a laptop trying to locate me! When the car was in the garage it was not easy to find as the police struggle at first to locate my car until I took it out the garage! I am lucky where I live and also have some high up police living here too, so that helps get things 'secured'.

 

[Housey]

I suspect the device was also or even possibly primarily there so they could follow you/locate you easily to try and ambush/mug you at a convenient out of the way location. Pretty scary.

True but if I had cottoned on they would not have caught me, especially around 'my roads'.

 

[wesley]

This is one the main reason im afraid to get a nice car. My biggest fear is my house get break in while I'm in bed sleeping. I think I would kill them in rage and be sent to prison for a long time

Sad

 

[gobbo]

I am lucky where I live and also have some high up police living here too, so that helps get things 'secured'.

That and the mine field and automated turrets of course!

I'm guessing these aren't your everyday opportunist thieves, sounds like they were very well organised (if a little stupid). Did the police ever get back to you with outcomes (sentences, how big the gang were etc)

 

[bimbleuk]

This is one the main reason im afraid to get a nice car. My biggest fear is my house get break in while I'm in bed sleeping. I think I would kill them in rage and be sent to prison for a long time

Sad

Which is pretty much what I was going to post except I don't have a garage so it would be at another address which would be even worse if violence was used.

 

[Nasher]

This is one the main reason im afraid to get a nice car. My biggest fear is my house get break in while I'm in bed sleeping. I think I would kill them in rage and be sent to prison for a long time

Sad

Depends. A few people have done it and been let off for self defense.

Could always bury them under the patio. After all, who is ever going to know they were there. Especially out in the countryside

 

[mjt]

Always wondered what happened with this story. Glad they all got locked up!

 

[grudas]

Yeah I remember you posting this years ago! This must've been a serious organised group to go to these lengths. Usually it's not up to those levels.

 

[something daft already!!]

What are "feds"?

 

[Nasher]

The FBI

 

[Vita]

What are "feds"?

The rozzers.

I think with gps tracking devices becoming easily available this is becoming the norm now. They should ban the sale of them personally.

 

[Begbie]

Scary.

There was also a guy on here who had guys follow him, chase him, smash the window (IIRC) and then take the car with force. IIRC it was a Subura Forester or a Scooby estate.

 

[tom_nieto]

Always a worry with having a nice car. Glad the police caught the perpetrators before anything nasty happened. I always love the rage kill brigade in these threads who would defend their property with force. After a couple of stern words and shouting I would hand over the keys and call the police. A car can always be replaced.

 

[BananaDunka]

This is where Better Call Saul got one of its plot ideas.

Scary.

There was also a guy on here who had guys follow him, chase him, smash the window (IIRC) and then take the car with force. IIRC it was a Subura Forester or a Scooby estate.

Would not make the slightest difference. You can get a waterproof Android phone with an extended battery case attached + burner sim and slap that to the car to be tracked remotely using a multitude of free apps that can track via Google Maps. It's simple and open source stuff anyone can use. They'd just switch to that instead.

 

[wingman]

What was the value of the RS4 at the time?

Trying to figure out at what value one should be scared, and hoping I'm too much of a pauper to ever worry about it.

 

[Dup]

I remember this but you couldn't talk too much about it at the time. Good to see it was properly dealt with, but they were more than opportunists our for a jolly.

There was a member on CTRO who has his highly tuned EP3 stolen. They came through his door with sledgehammers and took the keys off him and then proceeded to use it as a getaway car for a robbery. They recovered the car, fixed it, then a year later it happened again. Think he took it off the road after that and entered it into Time Attack before eventually stripping it. Was ridiculously loud too. Full Spoon cat-back mated to a Toda manifold, could hear it from miles away but obviously the police were too slow on the uptake.