It may be far fetched but does make sense.

The follow method has issues…

After 45 minutes you lose the target in traffic
Target stops before getting home, delaying the thief.
Thief aborts as target has travelled long distance.
Successful follow but house is overlooked/bikes kept in doors/big snarly dog

Every failed follow costs time and money.

Tracker… Pick a few cars, use Google street view to cherry pick an attractive target. Probably able to retrieve some trackers on a subsequent weekend.

It’s as likely aimed at the van and it’s contents, especially a van that is probably only used at a w/e.

Its all a bit A Team they done that trick back in the eighties,

I’ve got one of the trackers mentioned above, £25 from ebay. I got it to track team mates during 24 hr races, so I could stay in bed until needed. Just phone it, and get a text back, formatted for google earth. It will also send a text if the tracker goes outside a region you set, or faster than a set speed (to monitor your son in his car).

Do these trackers stick to flaky rust? If not I’m safe….