Car thefts: putting on the brakes.

Throughout the world, the theft and resale of automobiles and other vehicles are fast becoming big business for organized criminals, and the United Nations is urgently seeking to shore up some of the key loopholes that are enabling this illicit enterprise to mushroom. This was the focus of the International Conference on Illicit Trafficking in Stolen Vehicles, held in Warsaw, Poland, in December. The present boom in international car theft poses a number of daunting obstacles for law enforcement agencies - lack of centralized data, inadequate record-keeping requirements on stolen vehicles and vehicle registrations in general, cumbersome international recovery procedures, and too lenient legislation covering the activities of professional car thieves or "couriers".

For example, the number of cars stolen annually in France rose from 2,507 in 1950 to 143,608 in 1975 and on to 312,009 in 1992. In Belgium, it skyrocketed from 9,482 in 1986 to 31,313 in 1992. According to a news report, car thefts in Costa Rica have increased from 2,027 in 1993 to 3,400 in 1995.

A major recent change in stolen vehicle trends is the entry on the scene of a multiplicity of criminal gangs - sometimes in collaboration across frontiers - who are devising elaborate and sophisticated schemes for systematically smuggling stolen vehicles to far-flung destinations. Often, the systems are set up so that the used-car customer in the destination country believes he or she is making a legitimate purchase.

There are a great number of factors and loopholes in legislation, and the activities of the authorities contribute to the explosion in illicit trafficking in motor vehicles, including the slowness of exchange of data on the status of vehicle ownership. Existing registration provisions are found to be ineffective, and there is no systematic control for adherence to those provisions. Ineffective or even non-existent vehicle inspection requirements, corruption and increased freedom of movement across borders are other factors.

States see a need to create an efficient system of exchange information on stolen vehicles. They want to arrange 24-hour services for sharing national information with other countries, working through international cooperation organizations, such as the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the Europol. Interpol is already at work to expand its existing system in an effort to establish an international database on stolen vehicles.

Harmonization of registration documents was also considered a priority, along with stepped-up training to enable law enforcement authorities to detect forged foreign documents.

A further obstacle to international action is that law enforcement activities are organized in different ways in different countries. Tasks carried out by police in one country might be handled by frontier guards or customs agents in another. The various agencies might have special car theft investigative units at the national, regional or local levels.

Further proposals for improving international cooperation are the development of international agreements on motor vehicle crimes, exchange of liaison officers dealing with motor vehicle theft, and standardization of vehicle identification number codes and their more visible placement on motor vehicles. The development of an international registration document and wider use of anti-theft devices are also recommended.