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Theft of luxury cars is very sophisticated and widespread, with Range Rovers, one of the many targets for organized crime groups.
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The cars are stolen and shipped to the United Kingdom within 24 hours, according to a new report which found that theft cost British consumers and the economy of billions of pounds.
Organized criminal gangs lead the wave of car theft in the country, said the Defense and Security Relands Group of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) a report Published Thursday, the flight of British vehicles increasing by 75% over the past decade to around 130,000 vehicles per year.
The cars that are stolen are not only high-end vehicles such as Rogans or Rolls-Royces store, but everyday models like the Ford Fiesta or the Focus and the Volkswagen Golf, According to data on the most stolen brands and models.
They can be relatively easily torn off by organized criminal gangs that use theft technologies of sophisticated vehicles, which are quickly adapted when car manufacturers deploy anti-theft countermeasures, to steal cars.
The techniques, the networks of organized crime groups and the proven smuggling routes mean that cars are “stolen, loaded and removed from the United Kingdom,” said Rusi in its analysis, noting that vehicle flight is no longer a low-level and opportunistic crime, but rather a low value and low risk of serious and organized crime with national and international dimensions.
“What we really emphasize in the results is the fact that it is a certain brand or model today, but if it is designed [with technological advances to counter theft]Or the request changes, it will be another tomorrow, “Elijah Glantz, researcher at the organized crime team and the rusi police and one of the report co-authors, told CNBC.
Ford Fiesta St-Line Sporty Compact Hatchback Car View Front Display in Brussels Expo on January 13, 2017 in Brussels, Belgium.
Sjoerd van der Wal | Getty images
The criminals have become enharding and better organized, capable of providing relatively easily the markets where vehicles are expensive or lacking standard, and where demand is high for parts or whole vehicles.
Some key export markets for high -value stolen cars would include the United Arab Emirates, Georgia in the Caucasus, Cyprus and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The overall increase in the cost of parts and vehicles and the supply deficit in these markets “push people to seek the cheapest alternative, which, in many cases, could come from the illegal market and originally stolen a journey,” said Glantz.
CNBC contacted the National British Agency Crime Crime, an agency that is investigating serious and organized crime, the report’s conclusions.
The cost of crime
In addition to the personal costs of stolen cars for owners, vehicle flights have a significant impact on British drivers and the wider economy.
“Theft of vehicles now costs the British economy about 1.77 billion pounds sterling [$2.43 billion] A year and has resulted in an increase of 82% of the quotes of the automotive insurance premium since 2021, “with the costs aggravated by the increase in repair costs, the prices of vehicles and wider economic pressures, revealed the co-authors of Glantz and Rusi, Mark Williams and Alastair Greig.
The estimated metric of 1.77 billion pounds sterling refers to a social and economic metric of the “cost of the crime”, on the basis of the data collected by the office of the United Kingdom and refers to the money which enters crime prevention, the economic damage caused to the victim, whether it is a commercial company or a person, and the cost of repairing theft.
A collection of luxury vehicles recovered from the Metropolitan Police Police car after the police went down to the houses of Operation Mansel, which targeted the burglary and the theft of expensive cars.
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“The cost of vehicles has increased, the cost of insurance has increased. Vehicle manufacturers have paid a huge sum of money in the safeguarding of their vehicles, so the cost of crime has increased, and the overall volume of crime has also increased. So 1.77 billion is really a very lower limited figure,” he said.
Of course, car flight and illegal export are not confined to the United Kingdom – Canada, for example, has seen an increase in the sending of stolen cars to Central and West Africa– But there are specific problems that make the United Kingdom more vulnerable to such a crime, such as its geographical situation, the fact that it is an island and prioritization of violent crimes by its police forces with a budgetary limit.
“The United Kingdom is obviously a global trade partner who has many interactions and trade relations with water and Africa and elsewhere, and there is also a point of vulnerability in ports,” said Glantz, with port officials who spend a lot of time checking what’s going to ports, but not much time to check what is going out.
“As a result, systems are quite vulnerable,” said Glantz.
