Most theft victims will never see their cars again, writes Ken German, the retired policeman and our regular commentator on car crime matters.
The UK may no longer be a member of the EU but the latest European Union Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA), published every four years by Europol offers a stark reminder what western Europe is up against and this includes the UK although not specified in the report. Indeed the report’s findings suggests that serious and organised crime has never posed as high a threat to the EU and its citizens as it does today. More than 5,000 Organised Crime Groups (OCG’) that are operating on an international level are under investigation by the authorities in the 27 countries that make up the EU.
Responsible perhaps was the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic and social fallout which ironically paved the way to create ideal conditions for organised crime to spread its wings and take hold in Western Europe and beyond. The agility of criminal networks, allowed them to adapt to and capitalise on changes in the environment in which they operate allowing them to turn obstacles into criminal opportunities.
Today’s criminal network is run in a business like environment with a composition of managers, field operatives and their minions surrounded by mainly working in drugs trafficking, which still remains the largest criminal business in the EU.
A report from Eurojust, the European Union agency for criminal justice cooperation however has seen an increasing interest in all vehicle crime from European OCG’s which is particularly affecting the annual global automotive aftermarket for replacement parts and accessories, currently valued at $390 billion. The SOCTA assessment suggests that 7pc of all seized goods today are fake car parts which are clearly posing a growing security risk for road users, leading to deadly accidents and serious bodily harm. Rather worryingly those responsible for the production of fake parts are said to treat this crime as simply a high-profit/low-risk and victimless crime.
Examples of these counterfeit products include inferior quality airbags which do not deploy, body and structural parts with ineffective crumple zones, brake pads that have been found to be made of grass clippings and saw dust and ersatz engine and drive trains. Other examples include spark plugs that overheat and catch fire, oil filters that can cause sudden engine failure, suspension parts made of substandard materials leading to higher rates of failure, wheels that exhibit a compromised structural integrity, tyres with abnormal tread wear patterns that fail on air pressure and feature cracking as well as bulging, blistering, rippling in the sidewalls.
The EU threat assessment warns that:
Almost 60 per cent of their criminal networks are now reportedly engaged in corruption.
The OCGs make and launder billions of euros annually, the scale and complexity of which has previously been underestimated. Indeed professional money launderers have now established a parallel underground financial system that infiltrates and undermines many of Europe’s economies and societies. Their legal business structures are used to facilitate all types of criminal activity with an impact on the EU as a whole.
Over 80 per cent of their criminal networks that are currently active in the EU use legal business structures to hide their activities. Their use of violence by criminals involved in serious and organised crime has increased in both frequency and severity. The threat from violent incidents has become more frequent as is the use of firearms or explosives in public spaces.
Their criminal activities now exploit encrypted communications to network ‘on line’ using social media and other instant messaging services to reach a larger audience to advertise illegal goods, or spread disinformation. Whilst domestic and business burglaries, pick-pocketing and ATM attacks remain the most common forms of organised property crime used by cross-border criminal groups, motor vehicle crime is highly visible and has the potential to cause widespread feelings of insecurity.
Crimes in this category are often committed in Western Europe by highly mobile organised crime groups that often exploit inferior criminal groups to create networks of contacts, anchor points and logistical support in order to carry out a significant number of offences in a region over a short period of time before moving on. Organised vehicle crime in the UK is often investigated in isolation at a local level useful analysis is not allowed to circulate nationally making these crimes harder to understand, detect and solve. Indeed many such cases are still classified as ‘petty criminality’ without recognising the actual organised crime aspect.
A huge reduction in the amount of stolen vehicles recovered in many EU countries in the last few years indicates a shift from individual offenders to the more professional organised vehicle crime groups, who each have clients based in destination countries often requiring specific vehicles delivered either complete or in a stripped condition.
Whilst the findings of the SOCTA 2021 report relied heavily on its own intelligence often from its member states, gratifyingly it also utilised and exchanged information from countries outside the EU which have working arrangements with Europol and one of these is the UK. The request for more support to be given to the police in their fight against the organised vehicle gangs that operate freely here in the UK has been for some time the mantra of many officers operating daily at the coal face of this type of crime.
The UK lost 105,512 vehicles in 2021, which is still not acceptable for a relatively small island, but it’s the fact that to date only 29,543 of them have been recovered (28 per cent – Home Office) that has from our perspective given credibility to the EU report. The insurance companies now suggest the average cost per vehicle has risen from £10,000 in 2006 to £20,000 in 2021.
Our theft figures compare by comparison with Italy which lost 166,075 vehicles last year, France lost 173,010 and Holland which recorded 85,700 incidents of vehicle theft. Each also reported fairly similar recovery rates to that of the UK. Elsewhere, the USA’s National Insurance Crime Bureau stated that America had suffered the lost half a million vehicles, together worth $4.5 billion, to car thieves in just the first six months of 2022. Current figures suggest that this unwelcome target of one million cars stolen in one year, valued at $1 billion, is likely.
Clearly the SOCTA assessment reports on the movements of all organised crime gangs but whilst in the past vehicle crime has been seen as ‘bread and butter’ to them, evidence shows they are taking a much firmer grip on the lucrative stolen vehicle ‘Black Market’ and affording it a higher priority on their already comprehensive criminal portfolios.
If more proof were needed of OCGs involvement in vehicle crime here in the UK, then the 51pc increase in motorcycle theft at the end of 2022 (estimated 25,212) from last year figure together with a fall in stolen recoveries to 37pc clearly supports the change in dynamics of vehicle crime in general. The above statistics which were obtained from freedom of information requests sent to UK police forces showed ten of them experienced over 100pc increase in motorcycle theft since 2021.
Sadly the chances of, in fairness our determined police services, in finding many of these valuable stolen vehicles and reuniting them with their owners has diminished considerably. Distressed victims who have experienced theft and discovered that the police have ceased investigations after just 24 hours have turned on their insurance companies and used them as ‘whipping posts’ to air their distress, inconvenience and financial loss particularly at the frustrating disconnect they see between the police and their insurers.
Despite the UK’s National Police Chief Council’s encouraging pledge to work closely with car manufacturers and help them design out crime by sharing intelligence and equipment seized from criminals, the devil is in the detail or in this case the statistics. I think everyone understands vehicle crime was and still is a war we could never win. A nuisance or a costly inconvenience perhaps, but it never was a victimless crime as many people still wrongly assume.
Photo by Mark Rowe; street art, downtown Glasgow.
