Senior Specialist Chris Vargyas attended the annual International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI) European Branch training seminar at the end of October 2010.
IAATI was founded in 1952 in the USA and its purpose is to bring together representatives from different industries who share an interest in the investigation and prevention of motor vehicle theft. IAATI is now a global organisation with separate branches in Europe, Africa and Asia. The European Branch has been in operation since 1990 and has members from 33 countries; they hold an annual training seminar to give members an opportunity to come together to network and to share best practices and experiences.
The 2010 training seminar was held in Wroclaw, Poland and was attended by law enforcement, insurance, automotive and security industry professionals from across Europe.
Wroclaw is in the Lower Silesia region of Poland which borders the Czech Republic and Germany. The local Police are one of the most proactive forces in the country and work closely with their counterparts in Germany. Car crime is one of their highest priorities in the region and between 1999 and 2009 they managed to reduce the volume of stolen vehicles by 70%. They managed this through a series of specific actions against car crime in particular a focus on combating organised crime groups operating in the region.
Lower Silesia experienced a notable fall in car crime. This fall corresponds with an increase in car crime reported in Eastern Germany after Poland joined the EU and the Schengen agreement meant that freedom of movement across the borders increased. Police forces on both sides of the border agree that many thieves previously operating in Lower Silesia have shifted their operations into Germany.
The police have been working together since 2002 but cooperation has increased more recently. They exchange information including ownership documentation, intelligence and have more recently started to conduct co-ordinated operations to identify and arrest suspected car thieves operating between the two countries.
The most recent list of the most popular stolen vehicles in Lower Silesia was published in 2007 and is shown in the table below:
The current IAATI board organised an interesting and varied range of presentations, besides those from the Polish representatives several that caught our attention were:
Renato Schipani, an Italian Police Officer currently attached to Interpol who gave a presentation on Interpol’s activities and their operational stolen vehicle database. The database contains approximately 7 million stolen vehicle records from 129 countries; in 2010 it had been accessed by forces from 153 countries, which made 20 million separate searches. This is clearly a very valuable research tool.
Werner Postma, from the Foundation for Tackling Vehicle Crime (Stichting AVc) in the Netherlands gave an insightful presentation into transport crime and the progress of the EU truck parking label project. Transport crime costs Europe an estimated €8.5 billion per year and 60% of thefts happen when trucks are stopped when drivers are on enforced breaks. The EU truck parking label project aims to improve the standard of official truck stops to give hauliers more secure locations to take breaks throughout Europe.
Vince Wise from AVCIS and Kevin Howell from Datatag in the UK gave an overview of construction and agricultural equipment theft and while their focus was on the recently implemented CESAR scheme they highlighted the fact that plant theft costs European countries a combined total of approximately €4.5 billion per year. An astounding figure and one made more worrying by the fact that most plant equipment is poorly secured despite the majority of equipment costing as much, if not more than most family cars.
The 2011 European Branch training seminar is scheduled for October in Sibiu, Romania and SBD plan to report back from this future event.