Southland leads country in stolen auto exports
By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Nov 22 2004

With two of the nation’s largest ports and a U.S. border nearby,
Southern California leads the nation in one line of auto exports —
stolen cars that are being shipped overseas, where they fetch as much
as four times what they’re worth here.

Organized crime rings in Los Angeles, aided by scores of body shops,
contribute heavily to an auto theft industry that adds to an annual
loss of $8 billion nationwide.

About 1.2 million vehicles are stolen every year in the United
States — 70,000 of them in Los Angeles County — and some 200,000
are illegally exported.

“It’s like a kid in the candy store. There are so many vehicles out
there to look at and to steal,” said California Highway Patrol Lt.
Jeff Lee, an expert in Russian organized crime. “The money these
people are making, shipping them overseas, is phenomenal.”

In recent years, police in the San Fernando Valley have noted an
increase in activity by an organized ring of Russian Armenians who
have been lured from cigarette and jewelry store burglaries to auto
theft. The pickings are easy in car-crazy L.A., the risk of getting
caught is minimal and the penalties are lenient, officials said.

“You’ve got guys you could call career auto thieves,” said CHP Sgt.
John Antillon, who supervises a cargo theft team at the Port of
Los Angeles.

While it is unknown how many cars are shipped out or driven over the
border every year, the CHP said it intercepted nearly $8 million worth
of stolen vehicles at the Port of Los Angeles in 2003, and recovered
up to 5,000 stolen vehicles in Mexico.

“That amount of money makes it a lucrative endeavor for organized
rings and professional operators,” said Robert M. Bryant, president
and chief executive officer of the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

Greg Terp, who chairs the North American Export Committee —
a coalition of authorities committed to combating the global auto
theft problem — said he has seen auto theft rings run by the Mafia,
as well as Asian, Eurasian, Eastern European, South American, Central
American and Caribbean crime groups.

“They’re organized,” he said. “They’re making a lot money out of it.”

State and national authorities are working together to break up
auto-theft rings. CHP officers are now in Ukraine to train police
there on auto theft detection techniques.

U.S. authorities also are using computer technology to read the
license plates of vehicles passing through the U.S. borders with
Mexico and Canada.

Investigators conduct regular inspections of chop shops, sifting
through tons of metal and debris, but it’s a tough fight.

“The challenge is trying to take down these organized groups and stop
it before it gets overseas,” said Sgt. Rodney Ellison of the CHP’s
Vehicle Theft Unit, headquartered in Sacramento. “It’s a big problem.”

Ray Unsell, a special agent with the National Insurance Crime Bureau,
based in Las Vegas, said car thieves take advantage of the relatively
low risk and huge payoffs. But taking down a tangled criminal
organization can be frustrating.

“It is difficult to prove any actual connection because you don’t have
people talking,” said Unsell, who regularly works with Los Angeles
and California authorities on auto theft cases in Las Vegas.

“You have a choice in Russian organized crime — if you talk, you’re
dead. The people inside know what their status is.”