Motor vehicle theft

Updated on Feb 04, 2024

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Motor vehicle theft or, grand theft auto, is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a car (or any other motor vehicle). Nationwide in the US in 2012, there were an estimated 721,053 motor vehicle thefts, or approximately 229.7 motor vehicles stolen for every 100,000 inhabitants. Property losses due to motor vehicle theft in 2012 were estimated at $4.3 billion.

Methods

Some methods used by criminals to steal motor vehicles include:

Theft of an unattended vehicle without key(s): The removal of a parked vehicle either by breaking and entry, followed by hotwiring or other tampering methods to start the vehicle, or else towing. In London the police say that 50% of the annual 20,000 car thefts are now from high tech OBD (Onboard Diagnostic Port) key cloning kits (available online) and bypass immobiliser simulators.

Theft with access to keys: Known in some places as "Taken Without Owner's Consent (TWOC)". The unauthorized use of a vehicle in which the owner has allowed the driver to have possession of or easy access to the keys. Often, this is the adolescent or grown child or employee of the vehicle's owner who, at other times, may be authorized to use the vehicle. This may be treated differently, depending on the jurisdiction's laws, and the owner may choose not to press charges. However, this method also applies to criminals who break into a car and find that the owner has left a spare set of keys in the glovebox, and use these to drive the car away

Opportunistic theft: The removal of a vehicle that the owner or operator has left unattended with the keys visibly present, sometimes idling. Alternatively, some cars offered for sale are stolen during a 'test drive'. A 'test drive' may also provide a potential thief with insight into where the vehicle keys are stored, so that the thief may return later to steal the vehicle.

Carjacking: Refers to the taking of a vehicle by force or threat of force from its owner or operator. In most places, this is the most serious form of theft, since assault also occurs. In some carjackings, the operators and passengers are forced from the vehicle while the thief drives it away him/herself, while in other incidents, the operator and/or passenger(s) are forced to remain in the vehicle as hostages. Some less common carjackings result in the operator being forced to drive the assailant in accordance with the assailant's demands.

Fraudulent theft: Illegal acquisition of a vehicle from a seller through fraudulent transfer of funds that the seller will ultimately not receive (such as by identity theft or the use of a counterfeit cashier's check), or through the use of a loan obtained under false pretenses. Many vehicles stolen via fraud are resold quickly thereafter. Using this approach, the thief can quietly evade detection and continue stealing vehicles in different jurisdictions. Car rental and Car dealership companies are also defrauded by car thieves into renting, selling, financing, or leasing them cars with fake identification, checks, and credit cards. This is a common practice in areas near borders which tracking devices do nothing because jurisdiction cannot be applied into a foreign country to recover a lost vehicle.

Commonly used tools

Slide hammer puller to break into the door locks and the cylinder lock.

Multimeters or a test light to find a power source

Spare wires and/or a screwdriver to connect the power source to the ignition and starter wires

A generic rod and hook toolkit to slip between the car window and car frame and to open the lock behind the window. A common one is called the "Slim Jim".

Many keyless ignition/lock cars have weak or no cryptographic protection of the unlock signal. Proof-of-concept "thefts" of top-of-the-line luxury cars have been demonstrated by academic researchers using commercially available tools such as RFID microreaders, but is unknown whether the attack has been used for actual theft.

A firearm or other weapon such as a baseball bat, or a utility knife or a box cutter to break open a window or threaten a passenger if inside the car

OBD key cloning kits

Vehicles most frequently stolen

The makes and models of vehicles most frequently stolen vary by several factors, including region and ease of theft. In particular, the security systems in older vehicles may not be up to the same standard as current vehicles, and thieves also have longer to learn their weaknesses. Scrap metal and spare part prices may also influence thieves to prefer older vehicles.

In Bangkok, Thailand, the most frequently stolen vehicles are Toyota cars, Toyota Hilux and Isuzu D-Max pickups.

In Malaysia, Proton models are the most frequently stolen vehicles, with Proton Wira being the highest, followed by the Proton Waja and the Proton Perdana.

Prevention

There are various methods of prevention to reduce the likelihood of a vehicle getting stolen. These include physical barriers, which make the effort of stealing the vehicle more difficult. Some of these include:

Devices used to lock a part of the vehicle necessary in its operation, such as the wheel, steering wheel or brake pedal. A commonly used device of this kind is the steering-wheel lock (also known as a crook lock or club lock).

Immobilisers allow the vehicle to start only if a key containing the correct chip is present in the ignition. These work by locking the steering wheel and disabling the ignition.

Hidden kill switches cut electric current to the ignition coil, fuel pump, or other system to frustrate or slow down a thief.

Deterrents tell the thief they are more likely to get caught if the vehicle is stolen. These include:

Car alarm systems are triggered by breaking and entry into the vehicle.

Microdot identification tags allow individual parts of a vehicle to be identified.

Signs on windows warning of other deterrents, sometimes as a bluff.

VIN etching may reduce the resale value of parts or increase risk of resale.

Recovery of stolen vehicles

Recovery rates for stolen vehicles vary, depending on the effort a jurisdiction's police department puts into recovery, and devices a vehicle has installed to assist in the process.

Police departments use various methods of recovering stolen vehicles, such as random checks of vehicles that come in front of a patrol unit, checks of all vehicles parked along a street or within a parking lot using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) or keeping a watchlist of all the vehicles reported stolen by their owners. Police departments also receive tips on the location of stolen vehicles through StolenCar.com or isitnicked.com in the United Kingdom. Reason being is that car thieves will abandon a hot vehicle on a street or parking lot to let it cool off before moving it again in case it has a tracking device. Another method car thieves use is dismantle the car as soon as they can which makes recovery hard or by border crossing to another state or country making the BOLO watch list obsolete.

In the UK, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) provides information on the registration of vehicles to certain companies for consumer protection and anti-fraud purposes. The information may be added to by companies with details from the police, finance and insurance companies. Such companies include Carfax in the US, AutoCheck and CarCheck in the United Kingdom, and Cartell in Ireland, which then provide online car check services for the public and motor trade.

Vehicle tracking systems, such as LoJack, Automatic vehicle location, or Onstar may enable the location of the vehicle to be tracked by local law enforcement or a private company. Other security devices such as DotGuard microdots allow individual parts of a vehicle to also be identified and potentially returned.

Motor vehicle thefts, by country

Criminologist Frank E. Hagan wrote that, "Probably the most important factor in the rate of motor vehicle theft is the number of motor vehicles per capita in the country." Using data supplied by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the estimated worldwide auto-theft rate is 65.8 per 100,000 residents. However, data is not available for all countries, and this crime rate reflects only the most recent year of reported data. For the 4,429,167,344 people these countries represent, there were a total 2,915,575 cars stolen. Uruguay has the highest auto-theft rate for any fairly large country in the world, at 437.6 per 100,000 residents in 2012. However Bermuda in its most recent year of reported auto-thefts (2004), reported a rate of 1324.0 per 100,000 people. But the small population of Bermuda (65,000) is smaller than many cities in countries such as the USA or Canada. Some cities have higher rates than Bermuda, such as Newark, NJ which had an auto-theft rate of 1420.6 in 2012.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime notes "that when using the figures, any cross-national comparisons should be conducted with caution because of the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in countries, or the different methods of offence counting and recording". The last thing to note is that crime will vary by certain neighborhoods or areas in each country, so, just because a nationwide rate is a specified rate, does not mean that everywhere in that country retains the same amount of the likelihood of a car to be stolen.

References

Motor vehicle theft Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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