Interesting & Reference

2025:

2025 – Crime and Policing Bill – Bill passage (parliament)

08/04/2025 – Six cars confirmed as stolenwere located in containers at ports. The National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS), a national policing unit that works with police forces and industry to disrupt criminality involving serious and organised vehicle theft crime, has taken over their recovery – read more here.

02/2025 – ‘Car signal jammers behind a surge in vehicle thefts to be outlawed‘ (Telegraph & BBC) More interesting statistics, the source of which is unknown:
6 in 10 theft by jamming’
132,412 car thefts in 2024
However, in early 2024 the MPS could not disclose how many car thefts occurred in Greater London using keyless technology i.e. ‘relay theft’ as the information was ‘not in a readily retrievable format‘. Maybe things have changed – a response to a request is awaited.

UK VRM Formats

02/2025 – Car thieves offered to sell motors back to victims. They targeted luxury cars and motorbikes with a series of burglaries and car-jackings, and were charged with a total of 47 separate offences, police said. (BBC):

Note: not ‘security bypass’ or ‘keyless’ taking

02/2025 – Amazon banned car number plates as illegal supplies were found. ‘It is illegal for UK companies to supply number plates without physically seeing documents such as a driving licence or V5 document.’ Reference to ‘car cloning’. (BBC)

From 2021 to 2023, about 90,000 penalty charge notices were written off due to number plate cloning.

Last year the BBC revealed a 64% increase over three years in the number of fines cancelled due to car cloning incidents in London – see 08/2024 link below.

02/2025 – WhatCar’s ‘UK Most Stolen Cars of 2024‘ has been published, but how accurate is the information?

01/2025 – Across England and Wales an average of 78.5% of car thefts went unsolved in the last financial year. 10% of cars stolen in London are recovered, with less than 1% of cases resulting in someone being charged (Daily Mail).

01/2025 – New AI cameras will take ‘enforcement to the next level’ with drivers at risk. Read more here.

If the cameras are so sophisticated, why are they seemingly unable to assist with identifying the use of duplicate VRMs on our roads?

2024

11/2024 – ‘Britain’s police branded ‘outrageous’ as report shows shock figures on non-hate crime incidents: ‘We’ve lost the plot!’. Read more here.
11/2024 – Chair of National Police Chiefs’ Council says major changes needed urgently to make service fit for modern age; huge and urgent changes needed to end a postcode lottery for victims: ‘We need to do it once, and well, for all’. Read more here.
11/2024 – Op’ Thai-tanium – ‘stolen by fraud'(!) super cars (Telegraph) local copy
10/2024 – Ministers bring together industry experts and consumer champions to tackle spiralling costs for drivers. Factors driving up the cost of insurance include … ‘rising car thefts’. Read more here.
10/2024 – Should we standardise the position of a VIN – the Vehicle Identification Number?
This ‘comes at a time when organised crime gangs now see vehicle crime as a hugely profitable part of their criminal portfolio yet many police forces unfortunately still treat it as a low priority crime‘ (source)
10/2024 – ‘Judges in test case rule it was unlawful for lenders to pay commission to car dealers without borrowers’ knowledge’ (source)
“This is a significant and unexpected judgment, the implications of which stretch far beyond the motor finance sector, making it an issue that demands the immediate attention of the Financial Conduct Authority,” said the FLA director general, Stephen Haddrill.
- Martin Lewis has provided a ‘Car finance FREE reclaim tool & guide‘.
- 18/11/2024 – ‘Close Brothers faces key meeting over car finance scandal‘
- 03/2025 – High Court confirms 5,800 motor finance claimants can use omnibus claim forms
- 04/2025 – Motor finance compensation ruling ‘goes too far’, says City regulator
09/2024 – 316 stolen vehicles recovered in intensification week (NPCC)
- Op Alliances is delivered by Opal
- theft of car keys … an increasingly common tactic used by criminal
08/2024 – Thousands hit by fines from cloned car plates (BBC)
07/2024 – ‘stealing’ financed cars from Britain (This is Money & DriveSpark)
- NaVCIS has prevented the theft of – or returned – 320 stolen financed motors since 2021
- NaVCIS is funded by the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA) and has one role: to track down and recover stolen finance vehicles
- foreign police services have expressed an interest in cooperating with NaVCIS.
04/2024 – Payouts for vehicle theft (of and from a vehicle), and the average theft claim were both at record levels. The £669 million paid out rose by 23% on the £543 million paid in 2022. This, and the average theft of a vehicle claim of £12,600, were both the highest on record (source).
04/2024 – NaVCIS assist Hertfordshire Police in £2 million car finance fraud investigation (NaVCIS)
- 75 cars valued at more than £2 million were stolen.

2023

05/2023 – Car crime on the rise: vehicle thefts rocket by 25% in 2022. The annual total of stolen vehicles in the UK rose from 104,435 to 130,389 in 2022, new figures from the Office of National Statistics show. (Motoring Research)