Vertical Markets

Vehicle crime conference

by Mark Rowe

UK vehicle crime is certainly not declining as official statistics would suggest, it’s claimed ahead of an annual auto-crime sector conference.

As Justin Powell, President of the United Kingdom branch of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI) puts it, vehicle crime and vehicle ‘enabled’ crime will go out of fashion at the same time as shoes and haircuts. He points to the sheer increase in frequency of crimes from all sectors from thefts of classic cars to ‘chop shop’ crime (stolen cars ‘slaughtered’ for their parts) to finance fraud. UK vehicles are (and always will be) ‘hot property’ to criminals foreign and domestic, he says.

He points to ever more organised crime groups (OCGs) or commercial scale operators in vehicle crime. “On conversation with law enforcement both here and internationally it has been highlighted that dealing with the home grown criminals is tough enough, dealing with seriously organised foreign OCGs on migratory crime holidays was probably never considered in the UK law enforcement budget considerations for the last few years. It’s happening though, in greater numbers and more sophisticated attacks.”

As featured at the IAATI UK conference last year, electronic devices used by criminals to enter and steal cars include signal relays, jammers and key programmers.

After Nice and Berlin terror attacks by lorries, Continental law enforcers have worked out tracking individuals through vehicles is a method that works, Justin says.

“I would suggest the UK ‘sweep under the carpet’ the ‘true extent’ of crime involving vehicles or theft of vehicles via other reporting. One thing I do know in life … We are massively advantaged knowing the ‘full extent of the problem’. This will determine strategy to deal with ‘said’ problem but let’s start with the truth.”

Police, Home Office and industry speakers are invited to the University of Loughborough conference centre on Wednesday and Thursday, May 31 and June 1, with a dinner on the night between the two days’ conference. Topics include plant theft, vehicle tracking and bilking of petrol from forecourts.

Visit http://www.iaati.org.uk/conference-2017/.

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