crazy story and it's good to hear the police got to them before they finally got your car.
I think anything "performance" is a potential target, irrespective the badge. Arguably, a hot hatch is more at risk than say a Bently as it can blend in on a busy street, and it's probably just far too easy to search Autotrader/eBay for a similar car and copy those plates, to blend in even easier.
Once I got my M135i I soon read of stories from fellow owners having their houses broken into to get car keys. I'm sure it's the case for similar sized hot car like Focus RS, (R)S3/4, A45, etc. There was even some story of a gang threatening/torturing the homeowners in the middle of the night with a boiling kettle to get car keys...
A couple months into ownership the gf and I were eating and she spotted a couple lads parked over the road pointing at my car, when they spotted me looking at them they sped off, only for me to spot them again over the road 10mins later (again, they sped off when they clocked me looking at them - annoyingly before I could get a numberplate). So now we have cctv, not that I would expect it from stopping anything from happening. I bumped into a local policeman and asked his thoughts and he said he recommend leaving the keys out and visible downstairs so if they did break-in, then they would be on their way quickly. I can see the argument, but screw that, my keys are now left upstairs and out of the way, so I will hopefully be able to phone 999 and I can get hold of a baseball bat. At times I really wondered why I "rewarded" my hard work with a nice new car and whether the piece of mind of a 5 year old mid-range banger would have been less stress.