Why did they not park the car back and wait with the police on call in order to catch the thieves that would have come back the next night?
With the alarm disabled, they could wait a month.
A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
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Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#92If you have a car that has keyless entry store your keys in a metal box and confirm it wont unlock the vehicle even if you take the box and put it next to your door. Also if you drive a modern ford do everything you can to block access to odbii port as they can clone a key in seconds using special tools.
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#93After the frst paragraph(s) I was expecting the security center to be fake, the actual thieves, and have them send out a 'customary repair service' that would have to take the car back to the dealer or something.
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an American, I'm glad I'm not the only one :) That said, I thought that car theft was all but gone in the US, at least for modern cars, whereas in Europe it still seems common. (Eg, if you follow international forums for newer car models, nobody in the US talks about theft anymore, but our European counterparts talk about these highly complex theft schemes). But then someone was posting about theft in Sacramento,…
There's a huge difference between the US and EU in this regard. If I steal a car in California and try to sell it in Nevada, I can expect to be arrested. If I have a car stolen in The Netherlands and it's being sold in Romania, and I find out who's selling it and where, I'll be told that I have to travel to Romania and file report with the local police there before they'll do anything. The only inter-state enforcemen…
Actually you would just have to file a theft report with the local police and the car would not even enter Romania without the driver likely arrested and the car confiscated, as there is a real time db of cars reported stolen that is shared among the EU members and more. I imagine it could take a bit more effort to actually get the car back. You would probably have to worry much more about the car being torn apart and sold for pieces or leaving Europe through Rotterdam.
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's great that they have time to do that. I'm happy that somebody in this country has working public services. I'm just honestly surprised. I've only lived in Amsterdam inside The Netherlands and wouldn't expect the police to respond to something like that. > it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation In retrospect I may have misread this: > They gave the police the exact > coordinates of my car and…
Well the call center said it was a break-in or an accident. I'm sure the Amsterdam police would come if it was an accident and someone could have been injured.
So all I need to do to get Amsterdam police to care about bicycle theft is to install some sort of ribbon that'll get torn off if the lock gets broken, which'll be indistinguishable from the frame getting broken in half ("an accident"). Hook that all up to a GSM modem and a call center and suddenly my local cops will care about crime.
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I don't understand this. After you went through all the work of disabling the SOS, you can just take the car then, unless breaking the window was the way they initially got inside, and maybe they were thinking that the person would blindly repair the broken window to increase the value of the car on the black market? I don't know.
Because the police arrived 5 minutes after they disabled the SOS button. The next night, there would be no SOS notification when they broke the window again. Or maybe they'd only have to tear away a plastic bag, if the owner hadn't gotten the window replaced. Or maybe they were hoping to find a valet key in the car, making their job even easier, either that night, or the next night.
I don't know why he didn't talk to the police and tell them what he suspects and see if they would set up an ambush for the car thieves that night. Put the car back in place and wait for them to show up
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#97Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Meanwhile, wherever this guy lives they're sending officers because some BMW call cent…
Why should the police be sent to a smashed window? Not much they can do at that point unless you caught somebody red-handed. "Yup, that window is totally smashed. OK, just file a claim with your insurance company."
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an American, I'm glad I'm not the only one :) That said, I thought that car theft was all but gone in the US, at least for modern cars, whereas in Europe it still seems common. (Eg, if you follow international forums for newer car models, nobody in the US talks about theft anymore, but our European counterparts talk about these highly complex theft schemes). But then someone was posting about theft in Sacramento,…
I think it is easier to sell vehicles stolen in Europe. All a thief needs to do is drive the vehicle to Eastern Europe and there will be a buyer. Selling a stolen vehicle in the US is a lot more difficult.
Or getting it to Mexico, I suppose.
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a huge difference between the US and EU in this regard. If I steal a car in California and try to sell it in Nevada, I can expect to be arrested. If I have a car stolen in The Netherlands and it's being sold in Romania, and I find out who's selling it and where, I'll be told that I have to travel to Romania and file report with the local police there before they'll do anything. The only inter-state enforcemen…
Interesting because stolen cars are sometimes broken for parts, but perhaps there's no profit in that in US? There was an 'OEM+' car modding craze here a few years back where certain top-end Audis were being targeted solely for their front seats, which would then be fitted to older VWs.
And back when the S2000 was new, people were stealing them for the seats, and so on. But overall it seems like auto thefts have dropped precipitously since the 90s. Likely a combination of coordinated efforts and computerized DBs across states, cars getting harder to steal, etc, making it less worthwhile. Whereas, if parent is correct and it's easier to "get away with" in Europe, the remaining hurdle is technical, and quite an interesting problem to work around, even to this non-thief :)
Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt
#100The thieves would have been wiser to take something, anything to make the narrative of the original break in more believable. They didn't sell the narrative well enough, which left people curious.
I wonder why they bothered with the smash - broken glass would make people take their car to a dealer. Just the "failed jimmying" might have gone if not unnoticed as a police issue procrastinated in fixing. Maybe they were just frustrated auto thieves.