This year the police and other authorities both here and elsewhere in Europe will continue to outwit those involved in international car crime despite losing access to the Schengen Information System (SIS2) which the UK used half a billion times last year, writes Dr Ken German.
That said, co-operation with the EU regarding almost all aspects of security has been assured and governments from both sides of the water have sensibly recognised the continuing need for strong cooperation between all national police and judicial authorities most of which feared the worst on the run up to 2021.
Michel Barnier the EU’s chief negotiator has assured us that the security of citizens is not up for grabs and that combating terrorism and crime requires close co-operation between the European Union and the United Kingdom and that ambitious arrangements for the timely, effective, efficient and reciprocal exchanges of vehicle registration data. It is nevertheless, as one senior UK police officer suggested clearly going to be a ‘game changer’ until Britain finds an urgent and effective short term replacement for our existing liaisons, shared crime fighting tools and swift cooperation that we have forged over many decades; no doubt it’s going to be a huge security challenge for all police forces.
The EU commission however has apparently already devised plans for ‘a new framework for law enforcement and judicial cooperation’ including the exchange of DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data through the Prüm system. The Prüm system also known as Schengen III is a law enforcement treaty which was signed at a convention in May 2005 by Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Spain in the town of Prüm in Germany, and which is open to all members of the European Union – not the UK.
Another alternative discussed is that the EU arranges an ‘associate’ relationship with the UK through Europol [the EU’s policing agency in The Hague] similar to that they have with the USA; an idea that lacks substance and simply would not be sufficient for our needs.
Thankfully the New Year has seen many of our active criminal car gangs also run out of time in the way they used to operate. Their dealings in 2020 with their counterparts in the EU importing and exporting stolen vehicles, hampered at the end by the Covid restrictions, now requires them to implement their new strategies to be able to operate as before.
Greater scrutiny of their personal papers, passports and driving documents often found to be fraudulent or stolen can be expected at border controls and already evidence of fake and forged passports, driving licences, international driving permits, insurance certificates and green cards have been discovered.
Various countries’ fake and forged registration documents have been seen including driver Certificates of Professional Competence (CPC), International Certificates for Motor Vehicles (ICMV), Carnets de Passage en Douanes (CPD), forms VE103 vehicle on-hire certificates for temporarily taking a hired or leased vehicle abroad (with instructions how to do it), Admission Temporaire or Temporary Admission carnets (ATA) alongside negative Covid 19 test certificates, with fake spent test kits and worthless PPE equipment not fit for purpose. All were on offer from 20 euros to 750 euros.
The Dutch government now requires anyone travelling to the Netherlands to be carrying a negative covid-19 test result. Passengers from third countries should also have a completed and signed negative test declaration form including UK residents. UK Registration documents (V5C), extremely hard to forge or replicate will now need to be produced for drivers heading abroad and filters such as the EU fast-track passport control and customs lanes will no longer be available to them; offering less cover through the customs and police checkpoints for traffickers and mules.
The counties most in demand for fake identity documents after the UK and Northern Ireland were France, Sweden, Spain, Holland, Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy and Finland. Since January 2021, stolen driving and travel documents originated in Ireland have become now become desirable, something the Garda Siochana is well aware of, having been EU members, with the UK, since 1973.
The current paperwork necessary for transportation of goods will no doubt increase exponentially with particular focus on customs declarations legality, provenance, and ownership issues again which gang mules have previously managed to manipulate, circumnavigate and abuse.
Border checks will spend more time in establishing the who, which and where of suspect drivers and their vehicles as we no longer enjoy membership of Europol with whom we did exchange daily details on hundreds of active cross-border criminal investigations throughout Europe. This proved paramount when identifying information about a person or vehicle, why the person or vehicle was sought and what action should be taken when the person or vehicle was found.
The commercial vehicle disruption seen in December at the port of Dover encouraged support for the diverting of trade to alternative exits to Europe from our other ports around the country, one idea that organised criminals will not be slow in investigating. The ports of Newcastle, Hull, Harwich, Newhaven, Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth are aware of extra interest being shown by criminal gangs in particular Plymouth with its sailing links to Dublin, Rosslare and Cork via Cherbourg and Roscoff.
Should they make it to the ‘other side’, EU police, border guards and customs officers including those from Frontex using their 86 vehicles, 14 boats and eight aircraft to patrol EU’s ports, the sea and air borders are also primed for the expected changes.
Criminals who attempt to import stolen vehicles or parts into the UK fare slightly better as the government has delayed such intense checks for traffic coming into the UK for six months, a deadline which may even be extended beyond the proposed first of July 2021. Their activities may well target the Republic of Ireland which from the March 15, 2021 will have access to the Schengen system and other links and services that the UK has lost.
Neither Ireland nor the UK ever did sign the Schengen Agreement, yet both were allowed to take part in necessary searches for law enforcement purposes under the terms of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
British police this year have dealt with an extraordinary amount of vehicles bearing foreign registration plates. The majority of these have in fact been right hand drive in possession of people with permanent residence in the UK. Police often found neither person nor vehicle has ever left these shores!
The vehicles used were fairly cheap examples that were driven uninsured, untaxed with no MOT and they were used by drivers to commit driving offences at will without being identified as the offender. Most cars would be abandoned when used in crime or simply fitted with other random foreign registration plates and moved on to another user.
Owners of legal cars with foreign number plates in the UK are supposed to register them with the DVLA within six months but the agency holds no records of a foreign cars entry into the UK making it difficult to prove how long drivers have continued to use foreign plates. This phenomenon has recently been discovered taking place in other EU countries, one instance where good inter country liaison to date has proved vital in evidence gathering.
This year will no doubt see more innovative trafficking routes being tried by both UK and EU criminal car gangs who will attempt alternative tactics to cross a variety of borders using new editions of fraudulent and forged documents to try and continue making the huge profits they have enjoyed. Perhaps by ‘taking back more control of our borders’, our police and the National Crime Agency (NCA) can find the momentum and incentive they need to extend their concentrated and successful efforts in fighting vehicle crime here in the UK, where we enviably remain one of the most productive counties in terms of vehicle theft investigation, recovery of vehicles, related arrests made per capita.
About the author
Dr Ken German is a past president of IAATI UK, the UK chapter of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators. Visit www.iaati.org.
Photo; street art, Glasgow city centre.
