The theft last Fall of DaimlerChrysler chief Juergen Schrempp's $1 million S600 Mercedes-Benz limousine in downtown Stuttgart should indicate that the dark industry of automobile theft may have evolved somewhat, but continues to roll on globally nonetheless.
Before the professionally orchestrated heist of Herr Schrempp's "un-stealable" car during a scant 20 minute stop in front of the German automaker's headquarters, the last press this industry received came in the form of the utterly painful movie remake "Gone in 60 seconds" in 2000. It should be noted that the number of car thefts reached an all time high in the US shortly after the movie came out and viewers saw Nicolas Cage's pathetic portrayal and of the common car thug -- to the tune of 1.5 million cars annually or roughly one every 20 seconds.
If these statistics don't seem that threatening, you may also want to consider that in the US roughly 16 million cars are sold annually, meaning that for about every 11th car purchased, one is nabbed. In financial terms, this equates to $8 billion a year in direct losses, or a staggering $30 billion in consumer costs via increased insurance rates.
In a nutshell, this is everyone's problem.
Where car theft has evolved is partly in the targeting and partly in the execution. As long as there have been the "have's" and the "have not's," joyriding has been something largely reserved for the younger generation, which usually had little or no intention of financial gain from their theft. As the times evolved and gun ownership and use among youths escalated, however, we saw a sharp (if not temporary) increase in the pastime of carjacking (i.e. lazy gang-member theft).
The more troubling development was on the professional side of the equation. Specific models have always been at risk due to their relative ease of entry, but we have also seen specific parts like airbags, xenon headlights, and navigation systems targeted for their obvious high-margin appeal in the parts trade.
Car theft is practiced worldwide; virtually everywhere that has a high concentration of high-end vehicles along with borders or ports in close proximity is sure to be a hotbed of crime. Europe has been hit particularly hard as socioeconomic and political factors have led to increases in the expanse and strength of organized crime in Eastern Europe. This has led to a large percentage of car thefts being executed by very methodical criminal organizations, which literally fill orders for those in equally corrupt parts of the world. Once they get there, the cars are untouchable.
Walter Schmelzeng is an insurance investigator in Russia who tracks down stolen cars -- 1.5 million of which are already in Russia -- for a German insurance companies. Schmelzeng recently described his aggravations in trying to seize stolen vehicles.
The problem, he said, is that one of the cars he recently found now belongs to a Russian Government prosecutor. When Schmelzeng approached him, the prosecutor did an interview with the local newspaper about Walter. He then went to the local (and also very corrupt) police and arranged to have Walter arrested if he were to drive the car back to Germany.
Walter had also taken cars from members of the Russian parliament, only to have the vehicles returned to them during "safe-keeping" by the police. Not surprisingly, he has had little luck in bringing back any cars at all and no longer even attempts to work in the Ukraine, where several of his colleagues have been murdered by the mafia and he has personally received death threats.
The combination of car crime expertise, along with the car's specific features (bomb, bullet, theft proof) and close proximity to the border is certainly what made Schrempp's vehicle such an attractive target. Even with the latest in GPS tracking equipment, it seems the Mercedes-Benz was "un-stealable" much the same way that the Titanic was unsinkable.
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