‘Stolen’ Range Rover ploughs into solicitors on upmarket London road – after ‘being swiped utilizing keyless hacking’
A Range Rover said to have been stolen smashed into a solicitor’s office in the capital’s West End in the early hours of Thursday.
The car was allegedly nicked from a nearby residence in Wyndham Place, Marylebone, at around 4.30am but the supposed thief did not manage to get far before it was crashed into the metal fence of Moss Beachley & Mullum Solicitors.
House prices in the affluent area can reach a dizzying £10million, with one local telling the Daily Mail: ‘It’s very safe normally, I’ve never seen something like this here.’
A tow truck dragged the crumpled car – which appeared to be an L322 with a retail cost of up to £28,000 – from the crash site at about 6pm on Thursday, with crowds of onlookers gathering to watch the wreckage be removed.
As it was pulled out from the fence, parts of the engine spilled out and dragged along the pavement, where it got caught on the metal traffic post that had been ripped out of the ground from the impact and bits of uprooted concrete.
Although the airbag had blown up and the front windscreen was smashed, there were no reported injuries.
The owner of the Range Rover said that the car had been stolen using hacking technology because he still had his keys and nearby shopkeepers said they first saw the wrecked vehicle when arriving at work that morning.
The Metropolitan Police was unable to comment.
A ‘stolen’ Range Rover smashed into Moss Beachley & Mullum Solicitors in Wyndham Place, Marylebone, at around 4.30am on Thursday
A tow truck dragged the crumpled car from the crash site at about 6pm on Thursday evening
A metal traffic post had been ripped out of the ground from the impact
The range rover ploughed through the fence of the solicitors in the early hours of Thursday morning
Instead of the old-fashioned methods of smashing locks or forcing windows, three out of five vehicles stolen are now broken into using sophisticated ‘key-hacking’ techniques.
Modern fobs for smart keys, which unlock the car as the owner approaches without the need to press a button, are now common, offering glaring security loopholes for crime gangs to exploit.
In a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation published last year, a car thief said that some vehicles are easier to key jack – or steal – than others, describing luxury Range Rover Evoques as ‘easy, easy’.
The latest alleged theft is the latest in a string of car burglaries that have been plaguing ‘lawless London’.
In January, a luxury £165,000 Mercedes G-Wagon was broken into on Pont Street, Belgravia, west London, where the average property price is £2.4m.
This summer, thieves stole 70 Volkswagen badges and the sensors kept behind them in a four-day south London spree after apparently using drones to ‘scope out’ their victims.
And earlier this year, Ab Fab star Joanna Lumley was targeted by motorbike bandits who tried to steal her car as a spate of break-ins gripped her south London neighbourhood.
An astonishing 129,700 cars were stolen in the UK in 2024, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics. That equates to 355 per day – or one car stolen every four minutes.
