What the Jailing of a £320,000 Car Theft Gang Tells UK Fleet Operators About Relay Theft

Five people. Eight vehicles stolen. £320,000 in Mercedes and BMW models. Every single one taken without a key.

Last week, Dziugas Klinavicius became the fifth and final member of an organised crime gang to be sentenced for a vehicle theft campaign that ran across North Wales and Cheshire between January and March 2025. The gang used relay devices to capture keyless entry signals from inside victims’ homes, GPS jammers to knock out vehicle trackers, cloned number plates to cover their trail, and encrypted messaging apps to coordinate. They planned. They prepared. They executed.

None of this was random. And for fleet operators running taxis, private hire vehicles, and rental cars, that distinction matters. Vehicle theft in the UK has risen 74% over the past decade. The question is not whether organised gangs are targeting high-value fleet vehicles. It is whether the security on those vehicles was ever designed to stop them.

Why High-Value Fleet Vehicles Are the Primary Target for Relay Attack Gangs

Professional relay attack gangs operate on a straightforward calculation: the equipment investment is fixed, so the reward has to justify it. A relay device capable of opening any compatible keyless vehicle costs a few hundred pounds from criminal markets. The gang sentenced this week spent months coordinating across two counties. They did not target vehicles at random. They chose Mercedes and BMW models because premium makes hold value and move quickly through criminal networks.

Fleets concentrate exactly these vehicles in predictable ways. A taxi operator with 15 Toyotas parks most of them at the same two or three locations every night. A PCO driver leaves their vehicle outside their home on the same street. A rental company has its stock sitting on a forecourt. From a gang’s perspective, this is not a harder target than a private car owner. It is an easier one: a single location visit can identify multiple high-value targets.

Nearly 55,000 vehicles were stolen across the UK in 2025. The average theft claim has risen above £12,000 as criminal operations focus on vehicles worth the effort. For fleet operators, that is the environment you are operating in.

What Standard Keyless Security Gets Wrong About Professional Thieves

Between 60% and 70% of all vehicle thefts in the UK now involve keyless models, according to Admiral Insurance data reported by the BBC in November 2025. That figure is not a coincidence. Keyless entry makes vehicles easier to steal, and the criminals running these operations have invested accordingly. Relay devices seized during professional investigations sell for as much as £20,000 on criminal markets. This gang had the budget and the expertise to match.

OEM keyless entry was engineered for driver convenience, not to withstand this level of criminal investment. The relay attack works by amplifying the signal from your key fob inside your home and transmitting it to the car outside. The car reads the signal as genuine. It unlocks. The engine starts. The entire sequence takes under 60 seconds. Nothing in the standard factory security setup prevents this.

The same gang carried GPS signal jammers specifically to neutralise basic vehicle trackers. This is important because it shows how the threat has moved on: professional gangs have already factored standard consumer trackers into their planning. A jammer bought alongside a relay device removes the recovery layer that most fleet operators assume is protecting their vehicles.

A ghost immobiliser closes this gap at the entry point. It requires a unique button sequence inside the vehicle before the engine will start. That sequence cannot be replicated by relay equipment and is unaffected by signal jammers. Even if the gang opens the door, the vehicle does not move.

How to Protect Your Fleet from Relay Attack Gangs

Without a tracker, the national average recovery rate for a stolen vehicle in 2025 was 13.18%. That means more than eight in ten stolen vehicles last year were never returned. Vehicles fitted with professional tracking and monitoring systems show recovery rates of around 95%.

The practical response comes down to two things. First, fit a ghost immobiliser on every high-value vehicle. A relay attack that cannot start the engine is a failed theft, regardless of the gang’s relay equipment. Second, ensure every vehicle has live GPS tracking with professional monitoring, not a basic consumer device that can be taken offline with a cheap jammer.

The gang convicted this week made their operation look routine because it was. They had a system. Protecting a fleet against this kind of targeting requires the same level of deliberate planning. If you want to understand what that looks like for your specific operation, the Traknova team is happy to walk through it with you.