Jack Reid, 22, and Connor Jones, 25, admitted burglary and conspiring to steal motor vehicles at Chelmsford Crown Court this week.

Essex Police said they put devices near the homes of their victims, enabling them to copy the signals emitted by car keys before stealing the vehicles from their drives.

Jones was jailed for four years and 11 months while Reid was sentenced to three years and nine months.

The stolen vehicles would often be taken to a lock-up garage in Waltham Abbey to be stripped for parts.

Keyless car thefts also happened in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and London.

Police started an investigation after realising 70 of the thefts were linked to a group of organised criminals.

Katie Evans, from Brentwood, fell victim when her Ford Kuga was stolen from her drive in July 2024.

Police said the thieves did not need a key and “left behind no evidence and seemingly vanished without a trace”.

Ms Evans said the theft had left her looking over her shoulder.

“I felt scared at the thought of someone being outside my home watching until my children and I went to sleep to take our family car,” she said.

“At every little noise I heard I thought someone was coming back to break into the house.”

Reid, of Boyne Drive, Chelmsford, and Jones, of Shortlands Avenue, Ongar, used the car as a getaway vehicle to carry out a further 38 vehicle thefts.

Officers found the abandoned car in Waltham Abbey in August and noticed a lull in offending for about two weeks.

By mid-August, the Ford had been replaced with a Volkswagen Golf, which was stolen from outside a property in Edmonton, north London.

Reid and Jones went on to use it as they carried out numerous vehicle thefts across Essex, including in Brentwood, Epping and Basildon.

The pair were arrested by armed officers on 7 October at the lock-up.

Police said they found number plates, keys, balaclavas and transmitters at the scene as well as stolen cars.