Abstract - organized car theft

Characteristics and Backgrounds of an Illegal Industry

This book is about a study on the organized stealing and illegal trading of cars in the Netherlands. Central in this study are the following questions: What is the nature (in particular who are the offenders and offender groups and how do they operate) of organized car theft in the Netherlands, to what extent is car theft performed by syndicates (its degree of organisation) and what does this mean for both prevention and repression of this problem?
In order to answer these questions we have studied the available literature on this subject, analysed criminal investigations, interviewed experts, consulted judicial documentation and performed an overall analysis of 25 criminal investigations.
The study shows that a distinction can be made between offender groups engaged in organized car theft that operate within the country and groups that operate internationally. The former groups operate on a local, regional or national level when stealing and selling cars and their parts. The latter groups operate on both a national and international level when stealing and dealing the stolen goods. More than two-thirds of the criminal groups investigated work internationally; their main trading areas for very expensive luxury cars are the countries in Northern and Western Africa.
Within organized car theft a chain of functions and function groups can be distinguished starting with the theft of the car and ending with marketing or selling of the stolen cars or their parts. The functions and function groups that we have distinguished are: thieves, carriers/couriers, rebirthers (people who change the identification numbers of the stolen cars), choppers, shredders, brokers/ fencers/sellers, stashers, forgers of documents, suppliers of keys and principals/buyers.
In this book the characteristics and backgrounds of organized car theft are presented and recommendations are given with regard to tackling the problem.

Henk Ferwerda, Nicole Arts, Edgar de Bie en Ilse van Leiden - Georganiseerde autodiefstal. Kenmerken en achtergronden van een illegale branche in beeld gebracht. Amsterdam; Uitgeverij SWP, 2005.  »