Nationwide auto theft arrests net LV suspects

Thursday, April 29, 1999 | 11:15 a.m.

Three Las Vegans have been arrested in the past month as part of a nationwide crackdown on auto theft, the FBI says.

Federal task forces made more than 200 arrests in 22 cities Tuesday, more than 100 of them in the San Antonio area.

Las Vegas FBI spokesman Special Agent Joseph Dickey said the opportunity to arrest the three local suspects came earlier than Tuesday's concerted effort "so we took them down."

The names of the three people have not been released.

Dickey said the investigation is ongoing and more arrests are expected, both locally and nationally.

Officials say the focus is on small theft rings, made up of five to 25 people, that stole cars to order. The cars were used for chopping into parts or for shipment overseas.

While acknowledging that the auto theft rate is declining -- down 3.8 percent in 1997 and 16.5 percent since 1993 -- FBI Assistant Director Thomas Pickard in Washington D.C. said the recoveries of stolen vehicles also are down and only 14 percent of auto thefts result in arrests, "the lowest success rate for any major crime."

Pickard attributed the low arrest rate in part to the FBI's "lack of focus on it due to violence in the cities." He noted that in the early and mid-1990s, the FBI and state and local police shifted agents from interstate theft work to high priority operations against violent street gangs and drug traffickers.

In 1997, 1.4 million vehicles, worth $8 billion, were stolen and nearly 447,000 were never recovered. Pickard said the FBI and Customs Service estimate that 200,000 of these were shipped overseas for resale.

Pickard said they found rings whose members came from traditional 1930s organized crime groups and others made up primarily of Russian or Asian organized crime figures. "Many rings stand along ethnic lines," he said.

In addition to San Antonio and Las Vegas, authorities said arrests had occurred or were expected in these cities: Cleveland; Columbia, S.C.; Detroit; Houston; Indianapolis; Little Rock, Ark.; Memphis, Tenn. ; Miami; Mobile, Ala.; Oklahoma City; Salt Lake City; San Diego; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Springfield, Ill.; St. Louis; Tampa, Fla.; Pittsburgh; Omaha, Neb.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Los Angeles.