Students across the world have faced the challenge of covering their tuition and living costs whilst studying, and most of them are familiar with low wage jobs in the service industry.  In Malaysia though, it seems that students have been attracted to future careers as professional car thieves in order to avoid debts.

Organised Crime Networks (OCNs) in Malaysia have been enticing students in local schools and colleges to steal vehicles using simple methods in exchange for cash.  The students are paid between RM300 and RM500 (€70 to €115) for each vehicle that they steal and deliver to the crime syndicate.  Meanwhile, the benefits for the OCN are even greater, removing them from the high risk first stage of theft and reducing their chances of being implicated in the crime, even if the student thief is arrested.

In a typical operation, a customer will leave their vehicle at a hand car wash or with a hotel valet or aftermarket servicing workshop, where a member of the OCN will make a copy of the key (sometimes without the knowledge of their legitimate employer).  Once the vehicle is returned to the customer, the student is given the copied key and told to follow the customer home and later steal the vehicle.  The student is then paid when they deliver the vehicle to a specific location, typically a local port if the vehicle is to be shipped, or a workshop if the vehicle is to be stripped for parts.

Although the act of theft uses an unskilled method, this systematic approach and involvement of a wide network makes this a serious and organised crime operation.But does this make the student a “professional” thief, or do stereotypes fail to give the full and current picture? Popular opinion says that a casual car thief is an opportunist, who might steal a vehicle using an unskilled method for short-term use such as joy-riding. In contrast, a professional thief uses sophisticated, high-technology attacks to steal specific vehicles that are never recovered, with the thieves themselves established in large criminal networks. Under these old definitions, it could be argued that the student thief is part casual and part professional.

However, SBD’s research on Defining Vehicle Theft and Organised Crime shows that by applying the wrong descriptions to what’s happening it is easy to miss patterns and trends that may be important in preventing vehicle crime.  In reality, the criminal landscape is more varied with regards to the types of thief, the methods they may use, the vehicles they target and the final use for those vehicles.  Groups and networks may share information or resource across wide areas, they are commonly involved in more than one method and type of theft and their influence is truly global.  Individual thieves are often significantly removed from the heart of the network, where each link in the chain may only know the (more often than not false) name of their closest contact.

With the Malaysian students, this is an OCN making use of easily influenced individuals to steal vehicles using a basic, unskilled method.  In this case, the student is neither a casual or professional thief – they are simply the mercenary frontline of a wider, more serious criminal operation.

If you would like your FREE copy of Defining Vehicle Theft and Organised Crime or would like to learn more about Car theft and insurance requirements for Malaysia, please contact Kavitha Kuppuswamy at kkuppuswamy@sbd.co.uk