MANCHESTER gangs are believed to be stealing vehicles to order in a spate of burglaries.

Officers are warning people to ‘take their keys upstairs’ and keep their doors locked to deter thieves armed with fishing rods or other ‘hook and cane’ style methods.

The thieves even targeted a car garage opposite a police station.

Chapel Service Station, in Abbey Street was broken into overnight between Monday and the early hours of Tuesday and the keys to eight cars stolen.

A Landrover was pushed out of the way and a Volkswagen Golf was taken from the second-hand car sales forecourt.

The keys to two Honda Civics, two Audis, a Daewoo Matiz, and a Fiat Panda were also taken before owner Yusuf Patel raised the alarm. The gang had only got away with the Golf by the time the police were called.

A vehicle was stopped on Haslingden Road heading towards Rising Bridge at 4am on Tuesday and four men were arrested on suspicion of the Abbey Street garage burglary.

They have been bailed pending further inquiries.

The garage raid followed the theft of a BMW convertible from Burns Drive, Baxenden, on Saturday when the keys were taken from inside the house through an unlocked front door.

Then, on Tuesday night, four other similar raids were reported in Baxenden.

Two failed attempts to steal a Landrover Discovery were made on Partridge Drive around 7.30pm and, despite being chased off by one homeowner, the gang tried another house on the same street and stole keys to an 2008 Vauxhall Astra SRI, before driving it away.

They then moved on to Scott Avenue, where they again walked through an open door and stole the keys to a 56-plate Ford Fiesta.

Detective Inspector Claire Holbrook said: “All the Baxenden offences are the same gang, but we are not necessarily attaching those to the garage burglary.

“A lot of these incidents happen around tea-time when people are not as security conscious. People from Accrington and Baxenden must secure their doors at night, keep their keys out of sightlines and even take them upstairs with them at night.”