On Thursday in Ekerö, two men in their 30s were arrested after the police found two passenger model electric cars near where they lived. The cars have a value of nearly SEK 400,000 each. The men are now suspected of aggravated robbery and have subsequently been arrested by prosecutors. Daniel Almskog, investigator at the border police unit in the Stockholm region explains that this type of crime has occurred more and more frequently during the year.
– We have seen a marked increase in stolen cars during the late summer and autumn, especially the type of vehicle that we seized in connection with the arrest out on Ekerö, says Daniel Almskog.
Suspected thief network
The police suspect that the men who were arrested are part of a network of car thieves.
– We cannot prove it, but we suspect that the network they are part of is behind several of these thefts, explains Daniel Almskog.
The cars found had been stolen on two different occasions in Bromma at the end of October and then given false registration plates.
– Recently, a lot has happened in Bromma, mostly in residential areas. It is very concentrated in the northern parts of the county, he says and continues:
– It may be that there are more networks that commit this type of theft, we do not believe that the suspected grouping is behind all of them.
Uses the car’s “keyless system”
Daniel Almskog at the border police unit in the Stockholm region, says that the thieves use a so-called “relay attack” to steal the cars. The heeler uses the car’s “keyless system”, where the driver does not have to put the key in the lock. With a transmitter, the thief receives the signal from the driver’s key, and can thus unlock the car and drive away with it.