Car key raiders have struck nearly 1,000 times across the Black Country in the past five years, the Express & Star can reveal today.

Gangs of burglars target affluent areas, sometimes threatening terrified householders with guns, in order to steal millions of pounds worth of high-performance cars such as BMWs, Subarus and Mitsubishis.

Today the full extent of the relatively new breed of organised crime was laid bare with figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the Black Country, Smethwick has been hardest hit by the raiders, with 192 car key burglaries over the last five years.

Attacks in Wolverhampton – where homes have been hit in areas including Castlecroft and Tettenhall – declined for four years, with just 16 in 2005. But that figure soared to 42 last year.

Walsall has also seen a big rise. Eighteen households were targeted in 2002, with that figure climbing to 75 last year.

People living in the Bloxwich area are at the lowest risk from the criminals, the trend suggests. Yearly numbers have remained relatively steady.

There were 906 car key burglaries in the Black Country in the past five years.

Major improvements in car security have meant thieves increasingly need the keys to make off with cars rather than forcing the lock.

Even then, vehicles will often be left parked on a street in the hours after being stolen as gangs know hi-tech tracking equipment will often be hidden on valuable vehicles.

If the car is not recovered by police shortly after it is stolen, the raiders will return and drive off.

Many are stolen to order before being sold on with new number plates and shipped off to destinations such as China and India.

The cars are often used to carry out smash-and-grab raids on shops and pubs, netting the gang tens of thousands of pounds worth of cigarettes and alcohol.

Vehicles of lower value have also been stolen and used as “runarounds” to transport crooks from crime to crime.

Today police urged people to take extra care to lock doors and windows as the summer approaches.

By Crime Correspondent Mike Woods