This happened just around the corner from us also, several months ago. The small truck was in the driveway, in a corner house, on a fairly busy residential street. I was shocked. We have clubs and alarms (AZ is one of the highest for stolen vehicles), but I had never thought someone would take all the tires. And, like you said, how do you prepare.
Well, for one, don’t have super expensive rims on your vehicle. I can’t count the number of idiots here in Memphis who spend $3000 or more of rims bling and then had it stolen shortly after.
Dull functional rims are not in much demand and are not stolen frequently.
Well, if this has already happened in AZ, then this new type of wheel/tire theft has probably already spread to many states and probably - will increase everywhere as time goes by.
Again, I have no clue on how to prevent this from happening to any cars/trucks not garaged but left out by your curbs.
(however, the ideas in posts #46 and #48 might help)