- They reportedly use key jammers to steal luxury vehicles by cloning the key
Machete-wielding thugs have stormed into affluent Chelsea to steal Ferraris and £100,000 watches from terrified residents before bragging about their hauls on social media.
Gangs of thieves reportedly use key jammers to steal Ferraris and Range Rovers as well as machetes to slice £100,000 watches off their victims’ wrists in the area of West London, where many of Britain’s uber-rich reside.
James Thompson, chair of heritage group The Chelsea Society, told the Sun: ‘We have had a spate of machete guys going for women and taking their watches.
‘One happened right opposite, they said “if you don’t give us your ring we’ll cut your fingers off”.’
Videos on TikTok show the criminals boasting about their stealing sprees.
Chelsea was recently named the UK’s most expensive place to live, with Tite Street leading as the most expensive road with average house prices of £30million.
One of the homes on Tite Street has a private security team and a guard dog squad to protect the property and its owners after crime is reportedly getting worse in the area.
Chauffeur Asen told the Sun that one of his clients was robbed at knife point in 2021.
The thieves sliced his £100,000 Patek Philippe watch off his wrist as he sat outside a posh cafe.
His client was allegedly scarred by the incident, which caused him to sell off his entire £1.5million watch collection.
Other residents fell victim to burglaries.
One woman had £20,000 worth of jewellery and tech stolen in a house invasion six months ago, during which the burglar ‘went through every drawer starting from the bottom to the top’.
The same woman had a Mini Cooper and a Land Rover taken by thieves.
For her Land Rover, the criminals used a cloning kit, which scans a house for a car key and mimics the key. She said they gained access to her vehicle in ’15 seconds’.
Theft of luxury cars has been a growing concern in London after seven Ferraris were stolen in the Kensington and Chelsea borough just in July.
A few of these thefts were likely driven by a ransom-wear hack of the company’s IT systems earlier this year.
In a viral TikTok video, a balaclava-clad thief can be seen boasting about the stolen Ferrari he is driving down a Central London street in the video. He said: ‘No one’s out here doing it like me bruv.’
Another video shows the speedy theft of a £250,000 Ferrari 812 Superfast, which was broken into and driven off in just 30 seconds.
Footage from a Ring doorbell camera shows people walking around luxury cars parked on a Chelsea street.
They were casually looking into the cars in broad daylight, with one even using a torch to peek through the tinted windows of a Tesla.
Mr Thompson said car theft in the area is so common now that residents try and keep their keys from being scanned by putting them in metal containers.
The spate of car thefts in the area also presents insurance issues. Geoff Waters, 81, was told he couldn’t get his £125,000 Porsche Boxster convertible insured until it’s fitted with a tracker.
Mr Waters, who has been living in Chelsea for 45 years, said he is aware about the recent hike of car thefts in the area, but added that the tracker would cost nearly £700.
MailOnline has approached Met Police for comment.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
