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A global police operation targeting the stolen vehicle trade has led to the recovery of hundreds of cars, trucks and motorcycles in just two weeks.
Under the code name Operation Carback, police officers from 77 different countries worked together in an operation led by INTERPOL. The aim was to increase the number of checks at ports and land border crossings to compare vehicles and their owners against INTERPOL’s databases and detect potential criminals or criminal activity.
In just over two weeks, Operation Carback resulted in:
- Identification of 1,121 stolen cars and 64 motorcycles
- Arrest or detention of 222 people – suspected of trafficking in stolen vehicles
- Detention of 8 people – suspected of human trafficking
- Detection of 26 falsified vehicle documents.
- Seizure of 480,000 stolen cigarettes
Police also raided workshops where it was suspected that stolen vehicles are dismantled into parts to be smuggled or sold online.
Experts from INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicle Unit were deployed to key locations to assist with database checks, exchange and analysis, and act on operational data.
With the vehicle identification numbers (VIN) usually removed from stolen cars, INTERPOL enabled national law enforcement authorities to connect with car manufacturers to identify the origin of the vehicle.
As stolen vehicles are often stolen to finance and commit crimes ranging from drug trafficking, arms trafficking and human smuggling to corruption and international terrorism, INTERPOL’s General Secretariat Headquarters analyzes intelligence gathered during Operation Carback to identify links to other areas of crime.
“With vehicles typically smuggled across borders and ending up thousands of miles away from where they were stolen, an international operation like Carback is crucial to enable police to tackle the networks behind global car trafficking” – Ilana de Wild, Interpol’s Head of Organized and Emerging Crime.
Images: INTERPOL
