April was a month when the sun finally began to arrive back on our shores. Taylor Swift released a new album, and people immediately began to sleuth who the songs were about when taking a break from watching Baby Reindeer. All the while, thieves continued to make sure some people were in for a ‘cruel summer’ as vehicles continued to be stolen around the country. 

During April, Global Telemetrics were responsible for recovering £1.8m worth of vehicles for our customers. 

Aprils Facts and Figures

JLR was, as usual, at the top of our list of recovered vehicles, with 38% of all recovered vehicles being JLR models. However, the Range Rover Vogue shared the top spot of vehicles recovered this month with Fiat Ducato-based Motorhomes, both equating for 15% of all recoveries during this month. 

With other makes of motorhome included, motorhomes made up 32% of all recovered vehicles in April, showing that predictions made previously, that the sunny weather would bring about more motorhome thefts have indeed come true. 

Other stolen vehicles this month included models from Lexus, Ford, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, and Hyundai. 

April’s most interesting recoveries

April was a good month for recovering multiple vehicles at once.
Twice during the month, vehicles recovered with our tracking devices led to locations where other stolen vehicles were being sequestered. 

The first instance came at the start of the month when a customer saw their motorhome stolen as they allowed potential ‘buyers’ to test drive their motorhome. Unfortunately for the customer, they then never returned. Thankfully, armed with the location provided by our tracking device, our Repatriations Team and the West Mercia Police were able to attend the scene and discover and recover not only our customer’s motorhome but also two stolen pieces of plant machinery. 

On the final day of the month, our customer had their Range Rover stolen overnight. Straight away, our experienced Secure Control Centre team member Alicia noticed that this location was, in fact, the same location where our team had recovered a stolen vehicle in March. Our Repatriations Team, alongside Essex police’s fantastic Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit, was straight onto the scene and recovered not only our customer’s vehicle but also another stolen car and the chopped remains of others. 

April’s Quickest Recovery

In the same amount of time as halftime in a football match, our customers’ Range Rover Velar was recovered at the start of April in just 15 minutes. Our repatriations team and the police, armed with the location, arrived and secured the vehicle within 15 minutes of it being stolen.

Hotspots

London once again leads the way in the most frequent location vehicles are stolen from, with 33% of all recovered vehicles in April being stolen from a London borough. Barnet, Brent, Camden, Enfield, Greenwich, Havering, and Hammersmith and Fulham are all popular boroughs for vehicle theft. In second place this month was the West Midlands, with 19% of all recoveries, and third was West Yorkshire, with 10% of all recoveries for April. 

Looking Forward

As the weather gets better, we expect even more motorhomes and caravans to be targeted by thieves. A tracking device greatly enhances the chance of returning your home away from home. Each year, Global Telemetrics sees a number of vehicles stolen while in storage facilities, and without a tracking device, customers wouldn’t know their vehicle had been stolen for potentially a very long time.