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7 months ago
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This is the shocking moment thieves stole a Mercedes from a driveway in the dead of night, just hours after the car was viewed during the day.
Doorbell footage shows a man wearing a baseball cap and a dark-coloured hooded jacket talking to the luxury car's owners on March 25 at about 7.05pm.
He is being shown around the white Mercedes by two females, as a man stands behind with his arms crossed, which is parked up on the paved driveway in Watford with its doors and bonnet open.
The supposed perspective buyer waves his arms around before peering into the front passenger side and then appears to ask how many sets of keys there are.
The owner turns to the other female and says 'I've got one key, haven't we?' to which she says: 'We have got two keys but I'm trying to find the other.'
Doorbell footage shows a man wearing a baseball cap and a dark-coloured hooded jacket (left) talking to the luxury car's owners (two females on the right) in Watford
He is being shown around the white Mercedes by two females, as a man stands behind with his arms crossed, which is parked up on the paved driveway with its doors and bonnet open
The footage then cuts to six hours later at about 2.20am on March 26 when three male figures are seen casually walking up the car and unlocking the vehicle.
The all clamber in and start the engine before quickly reversing off the driveway.
Hertfordshire Constabulary told MailOnline it was investigating the theft of a Mercedes which had been advertised for sale in Croxley Green.
The force two men had viewed the car the day before but the owners had refused to sell it to them
'If anyone has any information about the theft, please contact police quoting reference 41/24502/24,' a spokesperson for Hertfordshire Constabulary said.
'When selling a car, make sure you always know where the keys are.'
Earlier this month, a car thief revealed how he can steal any vehicle in seconds using a £15,000 'readily available kit' which is legal to buy in the UK.
Former dirt racer Mark McCann hired a real life car thief to show him how he would steal a £60,000 Range Rover SVR from a Tesco's car park in an alarming video that lifts the lid on how the criminals operate.
In the video, posted to his YouTube channel with more than 240,000 subscribers, Mark meets a man dressed in a black balaclava who demonstrates how to use the 'state of the art' equipment to steal the four by four.
The thief claims the Range Rover model is 'one of the easiest' to steal, which he shows to be alarmingly true, as the man proceeds to unlock the car and start the engine supposedly within seconds of arriving in the car park.
The footage that cuts to nine hours later at about 2.20am on March 26 when three male figures are seen casually walking up the car and unlocking the vehicle
The all clamber in and start the engine before quickly reversing off the driveway
Range Rovers have been revealed to be some of the most stolen cars in the UK with around one in every 100 targeted by thieves last year, according to exclusive MailOnline analysis.
Car thieves are known to use a keyless 'relay' device to fool cars into thinking that their real keys are nearby - a feature of high-end cars that allow doors to be unlocked and cars to be started without using the key.
However this new technique seems much more risk averse, with thieves not needing to be in the vicinity of the vehicle in order to steal it, nor do they need to imitate the owner's key in order to gain access.
Instead, it requires a kit that the video claims can be bought from the dark web for £15,000. To demonstrate how the kit works, Mark hires a car thief to steal his mother's car as part of a staged routine.
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