INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ILLICIT TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN VEHICLES TO BE HELD AT WARSAW, 2-3 DECEMBER

2 December 1996

Press Release
SOC/CP/193

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ILLICIT TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN VEHICLES TO BE HELD AT WARSAW, 2-3 DECEMBER

19961202 VIENNA, 29 November (UN Information Service) -- Throughout the world, the theft and resale of automobiles and other vehicles is fast becoming big business for organized criminals, and the United Nations is urgently seeking to shore up some of the key loopholes that are enabling this illicit enterprise to mushroom. This is the focus of the forthcoming International Conference on Illicit Trafficking in Stolen Vehicles, to be held in Warsaw on 2 and 3 December.

Porsches, BMWs, Ferraris, Mercedes that vanish out of driveways and curbside parking spaces in France, Italy and Switzerland are producing quick profits for criminal networks as far away as Australia, West Africa and the Middle East. Mazdas, Volvos and Rabbits that are systematically rounded up in Western Europe are off to eager buyers in Eastern Europe and the Russian Federation. Harley Davidsons spirited away in North America are ending up in South-East Asia.

The present boom in international car theft poses a number of daunting obstacles for law enforcement agencies -- lack of centralized data, inadequate record-keeping requirements on stolen vehicles and vehicle registrations in general, cumbersome international recovery procedures, and too lenient legislation covering the activities of professional car thieves or "couriers".

Dimensions of Problem

And a boom it certainly is. For example, the number of cars stolen annually in France rose from 2,507 in 1950 to 143,608 in 1975, and on to 312,009 in 1992. In Belgium, the count skyrocketed from 9,482 in 1986 to 31,313 in 1992. According to a news report, car thefts have increased in Costa Rica from 2,027 in 1993 to 3,400 in 1995.

Among recent developments:

-- Albania, Europe's poorest country, reportedly has one of Europe's highest per capita ownerships of Mercedes;

-- Cars stolen in Los Angeles are being shipped to China, Saudi Arabia and even Viet Nam, according to an American law-enforcement journal.

Sometimes, the vehicles are hidden in containers, behind false walls, surrounded by cases of soup, cleaning products or clothing;

-- A car is stolen every 19 seconds in the United States, according to insurance industry calculations. If car theft were a legitimate business, it would rank fifth among the Fortune 500 companies, an insurance trade journal recently commented. Another industry source calls auto theft "the fastest growing crime of the 1990s in the United States";

-- In some countries -- including the United States, Kenya and Nigeria -- thieves find it easier to steal a vehicle while the owner is sitting in it with the key in the ignition. In the countries affected, car thefts are increasingly accompanied by violence;

-- A European insurance journal says car theft in Estonia is "almost risk-free" because of gaps in the laws. The avenue of choice for bringing stolen cars into the country en route to Russia is Sweden, due to the relatively relaxed border controls;

-- The German Bundeskriminalamt estimates that half of all car thefts in the country are faked, with the thieves working with the owners to profit off the insurance money;

-- California highway authorities uncovered one auto theft ring that was working with Russian organized crime groups who had found a way to gain legal ownerships of the stolen vehicles they were shipping to Eastern Europe. The thieves brought the cars to "chop shops", where it took no more than 30 minutes to dismantle them. The hull -- containing the VIN [vehicle identification number] code -- was left empty someplace where the police would find it. Then a gang member would be sent to the police warehouse to purchase the item "legally". When the car was reassembled for shipment, there was no way to prove it had been stolen;

-- In Iraq, people convicted of car theft for the first time may have a hand amputated. The second time, they lose a foot;

-- A security firm reports that in Australia, a car is stolen every four minutes;

-- A recent news story rates Milan as the number one city in motor vehicle thefts per 100,000 inhabitants. The leading contenders were Madrid (517), London (544), New York (1,300) and Milan (2,109).

According to a study being conducted in Europe by an institute affiliated with the United Nations, car thefts decreased for at least a short while during the 1990s in each of 24 responding countries, but the figures subsequently took another upward turn during the past two years, except in

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Germany and the United Kingdom. Preliminary results of the survey, "International Cooperation in the Prevention and Control of the Illicit Trafficking in Motor Vehicles", show a corresponding dramatic increase over the past five years in the numbers of stolen vehicles that have not been traced. On average, some 35 to 40 per cent of vehicles stolen in Europe cannot be traced. In Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovenia, more than half of all stolen cars remain missing.

According to the study's authors at the Helsinki-based European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, the risk of having your car stolen varies greatly from country to country (based on the number of stolen vehicles in proportion to the motor vehicle stock). The risk was lowest in 1990 in Slovenia (0.09) and highest in 1993 in the United Kingdom (2.74).

Trafficking Routes

A major recent change in stolen vehicle trends is the entry on the scene of a multiplicity of criminal gangs -- sometimes in collaboration across frontiers -- who are devising elaborate and sophisticated schemes for systematically smuggling stolen vehicles to far-flung destinations. Often, the systems are set up so that the used car customer in the destination country believes he or she is making a legitimate purchase.

The routes uncovered in the Institute's study resemble a yarn shop organized by kittens, featuring multiple avenues of moving stolen vehicles, mainly from west to east:

-- The Balkan route: Misappropriated vehicles are driven from Western European countries to the Balkan States or on to the Middle East;

-- The Italian route: Vehicles are either driven from Western European countries via Slovenia to Italy and further to Eastern Europe, or are shipped to Albania or Greece en route to the Balkan route;

-- The Central European route: Cars are driven from the Western European countries via Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary to the countries of the former Soviet Union;

-- The sea route: Stolen vehicles are shipped from the Western European countries either via the Mediterranean to the Middle East or via the Atlantic to Africa, as well as to the Far East and Australia;

-- The Spanish route: Misappropriated motor vehicles are driven from Western European countries via Spain to North Africa;

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-- The northern route: Cars are driven or ferried from the Nordic countries and Germany, or through Finland, to the Baltic countries and the Russian Federation.

In Poland and the United Kingdom, stolen vehicles are often disassembled before transportation out of those countries. With Bosnia divided into the Muslim/Croat Federation and the Rupublika Srpska, thieves are driving cars stolen from one enclave into another, where the areas' separate police forces were reluctant to cooperate.

Regulatory Loopholes

The Institute notes that a great number of factors and loopholes in legislation and the activities of the authorities contribute to the continent's explosion in illicit trafficking in motor vehicles. Respondents cite the slowness of the exchange of data on the status of vehicle ownership. Existing registration provisions are found to be ineffective, and there is no systematic control for adherence to those provisions. Others stress the role of ineffective or even non-existent vehicle inspection requirements, corruption, increased freedom of movement across borders, and differences in living standards between Eastern and Western Europe.

Also important are legislative discrepancies with respect to bona fide possession. In cases in which a stolen car has been found abandoned or in the possession of a person who cannot document ownership in good faith, the seizure and return of the car do not seem to be problematic. The difficulties arise over whether a vehicle can be seized from a bona fide possessor. In half of the responding countries, it can; in the others, it cannot.

The countries responding to the survey see the biggest problems as a lack of interest in their stolen vehicle cases by authorities in other countries, bureaucratic delays, language problems, and multiplicity of documents. Also posing difficulties in cross-border investigations of car thefts are the variety of registration practices, unfamiliarity with the relevant provisions of other countries, and differences in the level of training of vehicle inspectors.

Responding States see a need to create an efficient system to exchange information on stolen vehicles. They want to arrange 24-hour services for sharing national information with other countries, working through international cooperation organizations, such as the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the Europol. The Interpol is already at work to expand its existing system in an effort to establish an international database on stolen vehicles.

Harmonization of registration documents was also considered a priority, along with stepped-up training to enable law enforcement authorities to detect

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forged foreign documents. In the United Kingdom, not much attention is paid to this issue because it is not obligatory to keep vehicle-related documents in a car. In Finland, training has focused on the identification of VIN codes rather than documentation.

A further obstacle to international action is that law-enforcement activities are organized in different ways in different countries. Tasks carried out by police in one country might be handled by frontier guards or customs agents in another. The various agencies might have special car theft investigative units at the national, regional or local level.

Further proposals for improving international cooperation in this area are the development of international agreements on motor vehicle crimes, an exchange of liaison officers dealing with motor vehicle theft, and the standardization of VIN codes and their more visible placement on motor vehicles. The development of an international registration document and the wider use of anti-theft devices are also recommended.

In the western hemisphere, the Office of International Criminal Justice of the United States State Department has developed a treaty to identify, recover and return stolen vehicles traced to Central America and the Caribbean. The treaty is modeled after a similar agreement between the United States and Mexico, which has enabled the recovery of several thousand vehicles from that country each year.

Private Sector Partners

The most important private sector partners are said to be insurance companies, car manufacturers and importers, and car rental agencies, many of which are engaged in exchanges of information and training with law- enforcement authorities. The German Bundeskriminalamt has access to the vehicle manufacturers' database, and in Turkey the private sector has assisted the authorities in compiling a manual on the prevention of motor vehicle crime.

The survey was conducted by an expert group convened by the Institute, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation. It is based on replies received to a questionnaire that had been sent to all European countries except Andorra, the Holy See, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino.

The Warsaw Conference, organized by the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division, will be hosted by the Government of Poland.

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