GARDAÍ ARE INVESTIGATING the activities of a group of young men they believe may be behind a significant number of car robberies in the last two weeks. 

Around 20 vehicles have been stolen from the Portmarnock and Malahide areas of north Dublin since the middle of June. 

Many of the vehicles are being written off by joyriders. However, gardaí believe that the more expensive vehicles are being brought north of the border where they are either stripped for parts or sold on. 

Gardaí believe the same group of young men is targeting homes. On a number of occasions, homes have been broken into and car keys taken. Officers have recovered a number of vehicles which had been used for joyriding, and fingerprints have been recovered from a number of the cars.

TheJournal.ie understands that significant inroads have been made in the investigation. 

Officers are also aware of a number of social media profiles on Snapchat and Instagram which are being run by the alleged thieves. Some contain videos of the young teens joyriding the cars and then destroying them.

It is believed that while some homes are broken into, on other occasions a method known as fishing is used. This is where the car keys are fished from a location inside the house, through letterbox by using a specially adapted rod to grab them.

In one incident in the Sutton area last week, two cars were stolen from outside a house using this method.

Gardaí confirmed those incidents to TheJournal.ie.

A spokeswoman said: “A burglary occurred at Bayside Square North, Sutton in the early hours of this morning Friday, 28 June, 2019 and the keys to two cars were taken from the house and the cars then stolen.”