Your stolen car could have been one of them…
Car theft has been a growing problem in the United States. Many who have been victimized have wondered why their car just seemingly disappears. A new report from CNBC highlights one possibility: many stolen cars are shipped out of the country. The Port of New York and New Jersey are popular destinations for these hot rides, which are loaded into shipping containers and transported by boat to other countries where they’re sold for good money.
Learn why so many stolen luxury cars go to Venezuela here.
This can be enraging to realize, but we’ve seen this many times before. In the CNBC report, they feature several stolen cars which have been seized by police before they were loaded onto ships. These vehicles were swiped at different locations spread across the United States and were all brought to the same place to be smuggled out of the country.
Many of these cars are loaded into shipping containers which are hauled by a semi-truck or train to the port. Before the thieves do that, they often let the vehicle sit for a few days in a parking lot, just to make sure the owners or police don’t have a hidden tracking device, that way their stash of other stolen cars isn’t discovered.
The cars seized and displayed for CNBC were going to be shipped off to Ghana in West Africa. We’ve seen other stolen vehicles shipped to Venezuela, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Even more frustrating, authorities say the global shipping crisis hasn’t slowed the transport of stolen cars one bit as the practice is steadily rising. As they say, crime really does pay.
Smugglers find all sorts of creative ways to hide the stolen cars. They’ll stack furniture, mattresses, or whatever else in front of and even on top of the vehicles to keep them from being discovered. The US Customs and Border Protection official interviewed in the video report we’ve included says the problem is getting worse, not better. The best thing everyone can do is to take extra steps to secure their ride since thieves are plenty motivated to take it.
