Criminals are trawling the streets of Hamilton in trucks at night and “shopping” for bikes to steal, police have revealed.

The disturbing trend that has been caught on police CCTV comes as vehicle crime figures have increased dramatically across the Island.

So far this year 297 cars, bikes and trucks have been stolen, while 42 motorcycles have been taken in just the past two weeks.

The 15 cars that have already been stolen in 2015 has already outstripped the 13 cars that were stolen during the whole of 2014.

“I want to reassure the public that there is not someone out there jumping into cars and hot wiring them,” said Inspector Robert Cardwell, head of the roads policing unit.

“All of the cars that have been taken have been stolen using the keys, that shows cars are being stolen when the opportunity arises to criminals.

“This can be people leaving their keys in their cars or burglars targeting a residence and then stealing the car as a means of getting away with bigger and more loot.”

In just the past few weeks police have dealt with cases where keys have been cut for specific bikes that are then stolen, while some vehicle crooks look to make money from insurance scams and selling the parts on.

Insp Cardwell said: “Another trend we have noticed is we have seen two guys on a bike looking for a specific bike to steal.

“Once they identify the bike, one guy gets off and they put the key in.

“Somehow they have managed to get a key for that specific bike cut.

“We later discover that the bike was in the repair shop just two days before where there was obviously an opportunity for that key to be cut. We are presently looking at how many other cases there are like this.”

He added: “Last Thursday police descended on a chop shop where bikes are stripped down and parts are sold on, while the frame and the engine are dumped. We arrested three men and found four stolen bikes.

“One of the bikes recovered belonged to one of the men arrested so there is an insurance fraud going on here too.

“The person will get $4,000 for the bike as well as the money for the stripped down parts.

Insp Cardwell told The Royal Gazette that vehicle theft is an Island-wide problem and not confined to certain parishes. So far this year Police have made 27 arrests in connection with vehicle crime, while last year 79 suspected vehicles crooks were detained.

“Motorcycle theft trends increase over the summer months,” said Insp Cardwell.

“So it’s bad now but we can expect it to get worse as we get deeper into the summer months and it will taper off once the holiday is over. This year we have seen motorbike thieves using the city to shop for motorbikes in trucks. They lift the bikes on to the trucks and then drive off. This was captured on our CCTV just a couple of weeks ago.

“The difficulty we face when thefts are caught on camera is identifying the individuals involved; they often wear helmets or hoodies.”