Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: AFP 7:00 a.m., April 4, 2024

According to the Coyote Secure 2024 Vehicle Theft and Post-Theft Recovery Observatory, the number of vehicles stolen in 2023 increased significantly for the second year in a row. But since 2018, Coyote has offered a solution to locate and then recover the vehicle.

On average, in the space of an hour, 15 vehicles are stolen in France. This figure, reported by the Coyote Secure 2024 Theft and Post-Theft Recovery Observatory, illustrates a scourge which is gaining ground in France. In total, in 2023, the Ministry of the Interior recorded 140,400 thefts, an increase of 5% compared to 2022, a year in which this upward trend was already clearly visible. This increase in vehicle theft also contributes to inflating the bill for insurance companies, which amounted in 2022, according to France Assureurs, to 580 million euros. 

Since 2018, Coyote, a French company specializing in the design of driver assistance systems, has been developing a solution, called Coyote Secure, whose objective is to locate and then recover a stolen car. Concretely, this involves installing a hidden autonomous tracker on your vehicle which is resistant to jamming so as to be able to locate your vehicle, including in areas without network coverage.

A period of time to respect

A tool that is all the more useful given that according to the Theft and Post-Theft Recovery Observatory, 36% of the cars that were found by Coyote Secure services were discovered buried underground. Nearly one in two vehicles is even found in a closed box or in a container, which requires a precise location system that is resistant to environmental constraints. 

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Once the vehicle is located, the detectives alert the authorities who rush to analyze the location where the tracker is emitting. Through close collaboration with law enforcement throughout Europe, 91% of stolen cars are recovered in less than 48 hours, according to figures put forward by Coyote. A determining period of time, because, beyond two days, experts estimate that the chances of finding the vehicle are divided by ten. 

More than 9 out of 10 vehicles recovered 

In 2023, Coyote's operational teams have never had so many operations to carry out, assures the company. That year, the number of stolen vehicles continued to increase throughout the year, with the exception of a slight decline in April. Usually rather spare, the month of August did not escape the trend this time since the number of thefts declared to Coyote Secure services doubled during this period. “We had to expand our team of detectives and recruit, to respond to the increase in the number of operations in the field, but also to develop our partnerships with the authorities in France and Europe, to ensure the quality of service expected by our customers ", explains Benoît Lambert, general manager of Coyote. 

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However, some vehicle profiles are more targeted than others. Thus, SUVs represent 62% of cars recovered thanks to this solution. Hybrid, electric models and, more generally, recent vehicles, also arouse a certain desire on the part of criminal networks because of the technologies they carry.