CAR thieves are becoming more sophisticated, better organised and more specific, say the police, but investigators say they are on to their tactics, and are racking up major arrests.

“We are meeting them head to head. The things they come up with sometimes are really ingenious, but our investigators are onto them,” said Detective Inspector Judith Dixon, officer currently in charge of the police’s Stolen Motor Vehicle Unit (SMVU).

In May, the police scored a major coup when they broke a widespread car stealing ring that involved business operators, mechanics, and even a worker in a government tax office.

In an operation that began in Vineyard Town in east Kingston, the police recovered 13 vehicles and arrested six people in Kingston and St Elizabeth involved in the elaborate syndicate.

Over the past three years the number of cars reported stolen has increased annually, but last year’s climb was a negligible 1.6 per cent compared to the 27.4 per cent increase the year prior.

Nominally, there were 1,829 stolen vehicles in 2003; another 2,330 in 2004; and 2,368 in 2005.

Current figures from the SMVU suggest that an average of seven vehicles are stolen daily.

Up to the end of March this year, the unit had 630 car cases on its books.

That figure, when annualised, suggests that auto thefts could jump significantly again this year, to over 2,500.

But it’s not the numbers, police say, that is worrying, but rather the tactics and strategies that go into the stealing of cars.

“We also know that there are some criminals operating ‘steal to order’ rings, where they’ve already got a buyer who has requested a particular type of vehicle or particular parts, usually of expensive, high end vehicles,” says deputy commissioner of police, Mark Shields.

Since modern, high-end cars have more sophisticated security systems and are therefore harder to steal when parked, the thieves choose instead to steal the vehicles while people are driving, said Shields, usually by threat and often at gunpoint.

“Prados, CRVs, and Vitaras are among those vehicles that the high-end thieves favour, while the Toyota Corolla remains the most commonly-stolen car,” he added.

In addition to carjacking with people inside, car thieves try everything, says Dixon, from removing or tampering with the engine and chassis numbers of vehicles to cloning vehicles.

Cloning, she explains, is done by obtaining duplicate documents for vehicles then stealing cars matching their description.

Sometimes, Dixon says, the crooks dismantle the car to satisfy a demand for parts, which may end up miles away from where the car was stolen.

“These thieves have men (accomplices) in different parishes and what they do is take the vehicles in say, Kingston and St Andrew, and you will find them in a garage in say, St Ann,” said Inspector Dixon.

“It usually starts with one individual who steals a car and then recruits accomplices like locksmiths, mechanics, people to actually steal the car and so on, until it becomes a ring.”

When a car is reported stolen, information about that car is broadcast to all police stations and officers with radios, who first look out for that vehicle on the roads.

“That’s why we tell people that as soon as they realise that their car is missing, they need to report it, because once the message gets out from police control, police islandwide know to be on the lookout for that vehicle,” said Dixon.

It’s not a perfect system, but right now police vigilance is the best weapon the lawmen have in their arsenal, said Shields, pointing to the Superintendent Assan Thompson-led operation that smashed the car-stealing ring in May.

That operation he said resulted from good old-fashioned police work.

“The system of recovering motor vehicles can be improved, and we hope that in a few years we can move toward a ‘Police National Computer’,” said Shields.

The PNC, he explained, is a device used in England that allows police, with even partial information about the stolen vehicle, to issue an alert to other police units, allowing police officers to check on the spot whether a car has been reported stolen.

“In the interim, the police will continue to do stop and searches, particularly of those vehicles that are preferred by the thieves – Toyota Corollas, Honda Civics, Nissan Sunnys and Toyota Hiaces – because many times that’s when we nab them,” said Shields.

The Stolen Motor Vehicle Unit, however, according to Inspector Dixon, is equipped to take the investigations one step further.

“The police lab has a very good chemical that when applied, even when a person tries to remove or distort the original chassis number, it brings it up,” she said.

“We also do snap operations at garages where we look particularly for those vehicles whose engine and chassis numbers have been tampered with or removed, and we move based on intelligence; so we don’t move in unless we have solid evidence and can arrest and charge the persons involved.”

For the regular motor vehicle operator, Dixon’s advice is simple.

“First of all, it’s a good idea to travel with copies of your documents instead of the originals, but if you must use the originals, keep a copy somewhere safe, so that if your car is stolen you can provide the police with the information they need to recover it. Also, report stolen cars immediately. We can’t say enough how important that is,” added Dixon.

campbello@jamaicaobserver.com