INTERPOL finds 150 stolen cars from North America in Africa during car theft crackdown
People steal cars for a bevy of reasons. Perhaps the car thief would like to use an ill-gotten set of wheels for other crimes. Maybe it’s off to the chop shop to strip it down for parts. You likely don’t, however, expect your stolen car from North America to end up in Africa. Believe it or not, that’s the reality for 150 stolen North American cars discovered in Nigeria by international law enforcement.
INTERPOL discovered 150 stolen cars from North America and Europe as part of Operation ‘Safe Wheels’
INTERPOL, or the International Criminal Police Organization, deals with all kinds of crime across borders. One of those roles includes stopping syndicates and systems of criminal activity, including car theft networks. Enter “Safe Wheels,” a multinational cooperative effort that uncovered roughly 150 stolen cars around 5,000 miles away from their original homes.
The international effort brought 12 countries together over the course of two weeks with one goal in common: to stop a network of car thieves. So, just how do police and security agencies come together to find so many stolen cars? Back to the basics.
Participating agencies conducted vehicle inspections and dozens of daily checkpoints across multiple African countries. Using INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicle (SMV) database, police agencies were able to “flag” stolen cars one by one. And it’s comprehensive. INTERPOL says the database includes stolen car details from nearly every country on Earth.
It’s not staggeringly expensive luxury and performance cars, either. INTERPOL says most of the models it flagged during the two-week crackdown were from popular, typically budget-minded Japanese and European automakers like Toyota, Honda, and Peugeot, per CNR.
It’s unclear whether any of the vehicles will make their way back to North America. However, the Director of Organized and Emerging Crime at INTERPOL, David Caunter, maintains that the cars could have had a much darker purpose. “Stolen vehicles are trafficked across the globe, traded for drugs and other illicit commodities, enriching organized crime groups and even terrorists,” Caunter said.
