Thieves caught on video swiping a Ferrari in broad daylight
Justin Hyde
By Justin Hyde May 9, 2014 3:43 PM
After many years of decline, car thefts have begun to creep upward again, thanks to a combination of tech-savvy thieves and new strategies for moving stolen vehicles quickly across borders. The situation is even worse in Europe, where a pair of thieves were filmed by a witness swiping a Ferrari 348 in just over a minute — with a nonchalance that's almost impressive given it was the middle of the day on a busy public street.
The footage was shot by an eyewitness in the Dutch city of Maastricht, who saw the pair ambling toward the black Ferrari and quickly turned on a cameraphone. The 348, built from 1989 to 1995, has only rudimentary anti-theft tech by today's standards, although this pair goes the brute-force route of ripping out the ignition cylinder with a dent puller, then simply hot-wiring from there. According to Dutch media, the same duo was suspected of a similar taking of a BMW a day earlier.
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In Europe, many stolen cars end up shipped to Eastern European countries or Russia, for resale or parts. This Ferrari would be a prized commodity on the black market intact. If nothing else, it's made every other Ferrari owner think twice about installing a little more protection for their rides than simply parking on the street.
