Car thieves left suspicious mark before stealing family's Audi, BMW and Mercedes

19 August 2023 , 22:04

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The family lost an Audi, BMW and a Mercedes

A family who have lost several cars to a Grand Theft Auto-style gang of thieves have revealed they spotted a suspicious mark on a tree near their home before the crime.

Crooks made off with an Audi, BMW and Mercedes belonging to a father, 63, and his sons, 22 and 29, between 2am and 3.30am on Saturday, August 9.

A week earlier they had noticed a marking outside their home in the Sandwell area of the Black Country, but thought nothing of it at the time.

Part of the tree bark had either been 'scratched off or burned' at the base. Now, one of the sons has said he wants to warn others as he believed the sign could have been used to mark them as potential victims.

The suspicious mark left on the tree near their home

He said: “We found a suspicious mark on the tree outside of our house, I don't know if they used that to mark out our house or anything. We first noticed that about a week before, it was like they scratched off a load of bark, or burnt the tree slightly at the bottom. It's directly outside the drive. We thought it was a bit weird but we thought nothing of it. It was an odd mark, we can't 100% confirm if this was associated with the crime or not though."

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The burglars made 'no noise' as they managed to gain entry into the property, the family said. One of the sons added: “We realised in the morning when we woke up all of our cars had gone. We had two cars on the driveway, and a third parked on the road, and then we woke up to see the driveway was empty so we were shocked.

"They were completely silent, I don't know how they've done that; they must have done it that many times before because they made no noise at all. My brother was the first to wake up, and he noticed every car was just gone. He came and woke me and my other siblings up. We called 999 immediately, they sent an officer down to our house, he was asking us questions, what happened etc. He looked at CCTV footage, he got forensics down, the burglary team came down."

He added CCTV footage showed two masked men breaking in and later fleeing the property. Both wore masks, gloves and hoods. One was said to have been wearing a Nike jacket and Nike trainers, while the second was dressed all in black.

The son added: “Police said they are going to look for the cars and wait for them to show up on ANPRs and inform us if they find anything. "On Friday they said one of the cars the grey Audi was picked up on ANPR, but now they've lost all trace of it.

"I've never heard of this kind of crime in our area. My parents say since we've moved in here 30 years ago it's never happened - especially something of this magnitude."

Antony Clements-Thrower