Cars being stolen in Scotland and returned before morning
If you car comes up missing here in the U.S., you probably don't want it back once the thieves are done with it. Over in Scotland, they do things differently, even illegal things. Police say someone in southeast Scotland's Borders area is sneaking into houses, taking car keys and going for rides in the homeowners' cars. In this country, that'd be the end of it until the police found your Malibu up on cinder blocks in a bad neighborhood. The Scottish twist, however, is that the next morning all these cars are right where they were parked the day before. The burglar has struck at least eight times, and so far, only one car has ended up crashed.The only things that tip people their car has been stolen are finding their keys in strange places and discovering more miles on their odometers. Sometimes lots of miles. Until the thief is nabbed, we recommend the Scottish keep their tanks empty and their keys on the nightstand.
[Source: BBC via PistonHeads]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stringfellow Hawk 8:24AM (2/08/2008)
Spell check. Use it.
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John Johnson 8:47AM (2/08/2008)
I do have waking up and discoverign that my car has more miles.
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John Johnson 8:48AM (2/08/2008)
^LOL figures I'd typo that. Thought I hit Stop in time.
Well played, Autoblog. Well played indeed.
John Johnson 8:47AM (2/08/2008)
I do hate waking up and discoverign that my car has more miles.
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Chris 9:07AM (2/08/2008)
Malibue? Really, Autoblog...I expected more from you. Can you guys afford an editor?
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FThorn 9:59AM (2/08/2008)
"sneak into houses"
-dogs
-alarms
-locks
-bats
-OC pepper spray
-knives
-guns
-CCTV
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Mazdamia 10:17AM (2/08/2008)
That's how they spell Malibu in Europe.
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Chris Tutor 10:26AM (2/08/2008)
Thanks for the editing lesson. We have remove the errant "e" and put it right back where it belongs: at the end of potatoe.
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Allan 10:31AM (2/08/2008)
Maybe this guy is just test driving cars to see what he likes?
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Eleventeen 10:38AM (2/08/2008)
We used to play pranks like that when we were in high school. We 'borrowed' a friends Supra and brought it to the dyno shop a pal worked at and ran it 70-80 mph for several hours and returned it the next morning. When the owner went out, he was surprised to see there was almost 7000 new miles on his odo.
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Rocketboy 10:52AM (2/08/2008)
It's Scotland, so maybe they were just drunk, and didn't realize what they were doing...
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industrial_strength_bard 11:07AM (2/08/2008)
I'll tell you exactly what they're doing with the cars:
Drug Mules.
You steal a car, load up the narcotics, drive them where you need it to be and return the car. This way, you're using a car that cannot be traced to you and by returning it, the owner is unlikely going to call the police because they don't even notice! And when they do call the cops, you're miles away!
If you get busted WITH the car on the night in question, just ditch it.
Either way, it's a way to get a ride to use for "Work" (if you call it such) and dispose of it in the most ingenious way possible: Give it back to the bloke you stole it from.
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Eleventeen 11:52AM (2/08/2008)
I should have worked on my typing skills..should have been 700 miles.
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KarlInSanDiego 11:57AM (2/08/2008)
Or perhaps if two cars are stolen, it's a simple game of Cat and Mouse (or car tag, for the uninitiated) And no, I never took part in such sport, but teenaged co-workers were fervent players.
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JKwan 3:59PM (2/08/2008)
riiiiiight...
and by several hours, you meant 100 hours (or 4 days) straight...
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Nucbuddy 5:06PM (2/09/2008)
Why not just flip the hidden master-switch when parking the car?
http://www.google.com/search?q=master-switch+car+stolen+hidden
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