Easy pickings: Auto theft big business in valley

Jace Radke

Friday, April 5, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

In the shadows of garages and parking lots a new group of professionals is doing big business in Las Vegas.

"These guys get up in the morning and take a shower and go to work like anyone else, except their job is stealing cars," Metro Police detective Ira Carter said. "It's a job for them and they're good at it. They're proud of what they do."

Ten years ago a stolen car in Las Vegas usually meant someone was out for a joy ride, but now professional rings are making surgically precise thefts designed to quickly bring in parts and cars for resale.

In 2001, 13,680 cars were stolen in Clark County, while only 11,139 were stolen in twice as populous Orange County, Calif.

"We have to get a hold on the situation, because more (car thieves) are coming here," said Carter, who is part of a Metro-run auto theft task force known as VIPER, Vehicle Investigations Project for Enforcement & Recovery. "Las Vegas is a target."

A growing population, limited police resources and easy access to a multitude of tourist-driven cars make Las Vegas a car thief's dream. The gleaming metallic skeletons of stripped car bodies are found every day in garages, lots and even on the street, VIPER supervisor Sgt. Susan Shingleton said.

"A professional can steal a car in seconds, and have it completely chopped in less than 45 minutes," Shingleton said. "Once a car is chopped the parts can be sold to salvage yards or repair shops, cutting their overhead.

"It's unbelievable the money that can be made."

For example, a $20,000 truck could be worth as much as $40,000 when it is chopped down to its component parts, Shingleton said.

Those parts are then marked up and sold for $60,000.

"So here you have a ring investing $500 to someone to steal the car, and taking the rest of the $60,000 as profit," Shingleton said. "Now think about what these people are making if they're grabbing five or six cars a day."

Authorities estimate that auto theft is a $9 billion-a-year business in the United States, Shingleton said.

Along with being chopped for parts, stolen cars are also fraudulently sold to unsuspecting consumers. Thieves switch stolen cars' vehicle identification numbers so that they do not appear to be stolen, then sell the cars to unsuspecting buyers.

Ray Unsell, a special agent with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a nonprofit company funded by insurance providers to investigate fraud and stolen cars, said there are thousands of people who own stolen cars and don't even know it.

"We had a couple from Portland, Ore., who were visiting Las Vegas in a 1999 Saab," Unsell said. "They took it in to a dealership here for some routine maintenance and the VIN on the car didn't match in the computer.

"Turns out the car had been stolen twice, and they had no idea."

Some thieves go even further, chopping parts off cars and then putting those parts on another vehicle to make it look like a more expensive model. For example, a Chevrolet Tahoe with some bells and whistles can look exactly like a more expensive Cadillac Escalade.

Still other rings keep the cars in one piece, shipping them overseas for sale.

"A Honda or Toyota may not seem like a real nice car here, but in other countries they are luxury items," Carter said.

Task forces such as VIPER and federal prosecution are the weapons of choice for authorities combating rising auto theft rates.

In Orange County a multi-jurisdictional task force is credited with playing a part in a nearly 50 percent drop in car thefts from 20,145 in 1993 to 11,139 last year.

But the crackdown by authorities in California is sending car thieves north on Interstate 15 looking for easier pickings in Las Vegas, Carter said.

"They're fishing, and they're going to go where they can catch the most fish," Carter said.

The Orange County task force has the advantage of being funded by a $1 tariff added to Department of Motor Vehicles registration fees, task force supervisor Lt. Kenn Rosenberg said.

VIPER, which includes representatives from the FBI, Nevada Department of Investigations, Henderson Police, Nevada Highway Patrol and Metro Police, currently has only six officers assigned to it and is funded by Metro and small grants from the NICB.

"The bottom line is that unless something more is done here the auto thefts will continue to increase," Unsell said. "I'd think people would rather pay an extra $1 on their registration then a $50 rate increase for their insurance."

Shingleton's squad uses undercover operations, jailhouse informants and detective work to track down violators, but are sometimes frustrated by plea agreements that drop charges to misdemeanors. To combat this the task force has started taking its bigger cases to U.S. District Court, where sentencing guidelines allow for penalties of up to 10 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine for sale or receipt of stolen vehicles.

More frustrating than the Justice system is the tenacity and ingenuity of the crooks.

"We see a lot of the same guys over and over again," Carter said. "We may arrest them, but just because you get a foul doesn't mean you're going to quit the game.

"We've had guys stealing cars to pay for the attorney who is defending them on another stolen car case."

There is a learning curve with the criminals, just as there is with law enforcement, Unsell said.

In one case police arrested a man who was targeting hotel-casino valet areas. He would dress like the valets at the hotel, and then wait for a busy moment. Armed with a stationery pad from the hotel and a pen he would walk up, write a receipt and drive off in a new car.

"He was basically picking out the car he wanted," Carter said. "If the owners were having dinner or going to a show it could be five or six hours before they even knew the car was gone.

"If these guys want a car they'll get it."

About half the cars stolen in Metro's jurisdiction in a given year are recovered by police during that same year.

Even if a car is recovered it could be stripped or damaged.

"It sometimes gets frustrating because we're getting overrun," Shingleton said. "At the same time the best feeling in the world is giving someone back their car.

"Maybe it's a car that someone rebuilt with their dad, or the only means of transportation for a family. To us every car is important."

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