In the early hours of 5 February, police allege, a group of young men worked their way through Melbourne's east and south-east breaking into homes for car keys. By morning, two Porsches and a Maserati had been driven away. The ABC reported that all of them were later recovered.
What was reported
According to the ABC and a Victoria Police release:
- At about 1.05am, police allege a Porsche Cayenne was stolen from a home in Canterbury.
- Less than half an hour later there was an unsuccessful attempt to break into a second Canterbury home.
- At a third home nearby, police allege the group took the keys to a Porsche and a BMW. The resident was woken by the sound of the cars starting and confronted them. The group left in the Porsche. The BMW stayed.
- Later that morning, police allege, keys to a Maserati were taken from a home in Cranbourne and the car was driven off. Police were called after it was seen driving erratically in Mount Eliza.
Four men aged between 17 and 23 were charged with offences including home invasion, aggravated burglary, theft of a motor vehicle and attempted theft of a motor vehicle. Those charges are allegations and have not been tested in court.
The keys were the target, not the house
This pattern has been common in Melbourne for several years and it showed up repeatedly in 2026. The house is broken into, but what is wanted is usually a set of car keys. Modern luxury cars are hard to steal without their keys or fobs, so the shortcut is to go inside and find them.
That shifts the risk in a way many homeowners don't expect. An expensive car on the driveway isn't just a target in itself. It's a reason for someone to come into the house. Keys left near the front door, on a hook or in a bowl, make that job quick, which is why police advice has long been to keep them out of sight.
The moment between starting and leaving
The detail worth thinking about is the resident who woke to the sound of their cars starting. By then the keys were already gone. The only thing left between the thieves and the street was the length of the driveway.
On most Melbourne driveways, that length has nothing in it. Gates are rare on front driveways, and where they exist, they're often left open or set to open from inside. Once a car with a working key is moving, nothing stops it reaching the road.
This is the gap a physical barrier is designed for. A removable bollard locked into a sleeve in front of the car means the car can be started but not driven off the property without first unlocking the bollard. That key isn't on the car's key ring, and in a hurried burglary nobody is looking for it.
We can't say whether a barrier would have changed the outcome at any of these homes. We haven't seen them, and a determined group has other options. The point is general: a barrier is the one measure that still works after the car keys are gone.
Tandem driveways and the second car
Many Melbourne homes park two cars nose to tail on a single driveway, or side by side on a double one. That means the car at the back is boxed in by the one in front, while the front car is the easy one.
If you're placing a bollard on a driveway like that, it needs to block the exit for every car, not just the first. On a tandem driveway that usually means one bollard near the street end. On a double-width driveway it may mean two, or one placed where both cars would have to pass it. For homes with more than one bollard, having them keyed alike keeps the routine to a single key.
Don't confront, let the barrier do the work
The resident in Canterbury confronted the group. Police consistently advise against doing that, because a person standing between a thief and a running car is in real danger. We've written about two August cases where owners were hurt on or near their own driveways. The safer plan is to call triple zero, stay inside, and rely on whatever is already in place.
A sensible layered setup
- Keys out of sight and away from doors. Not on a hook by the entry, not in a bowl by the window.
- The most valuable car in the garage, if you have one and it has room.
- Lighting and a camera covering the driveway, which helps police afterwards and may put someone off.
- A physical stop at the driveway, so a stolen key doesn't automatically mean a stolen car.
None of these is perfect on its own. Together they turn a quick, quiet job into a slow, noisy one, and slow and noisy is what most offenders avoid.