Tracking devices are a key solution to the stolen car problem in Ireland, says Det Sgt Finbarr Garland, head of the Garda stolen vehicles unit
MEETING FOR the interview itself feels a little like a sting operation. It’s organised for a cafe, with an agreed table near the till.
Det Sgt Finbarr Garland, head of the Garda stolen vehicles unit, values his time off and doesn’t necessarily want to draw attention to himself, but has granted us time to discuss a topic that is all too real to those who has been the victim of a car theft.
When not enjoying a quiet coffee and paper on his day off, Garland heads up one of the most credible and admired stolen vehicle units in Europe. Ireland is in the grips of a recession and the brakes have been applied to wanton spending. The flash, high-powered cars that sold in large numbers are now are rarer sights on our roads, but this still hasn’t stopped car thieves from searching them out. Has the recession had an effect on car crime in Ireland? With increased desperation, have the instances of car theft increased?
“It actually hasn’t gone up, the recession hasn’t caused too much of a problem. It has been stabilised for the last four or five years,” says Garland. There is an average of 13,000-14,000 cars stolen every year and, of that, 2,000 are not be recovered. It isn’t a bad record, but is little condolence to those left with an empty driveway.
“From a European point of view, that is very good from a recovery point of view. The fact that we are on an island does help,” says Garland. Of the 2,000 vehicles that are never recovered, Garland says that these are the cars that are stolen to order.
They tend to have a similar profile – German, expensive and fast in most cases. “Vehicles like this are stolen and the thieves will hide them for a while, until the heat dies down and to ascertain if the car is fitted with a tracking device. Stolen cars are often left in apartment complexes or even at the airport. Places they wouldn’t look out of place.” The cars are then left, sometimes for days, to see if they will picked up by gardaí if a tracker is fitted. If not, the thief has a green light to move on to the next stage.
Car thieves, like the cars they target, evolve with technology. A new trend, according to Garland is organised gangs who have discovered ways to bypass engine immobiliser. “We are aware of eastern European gangs who have sourced devices that can beat engine immobilisers. It is still a crude method because they still have to break into the car and they have to mess around with the actual ignition. This is a trend we have only come across in the last six to eight months.”
Garland identifies three reasons why cars are stolen. “In the first instance a car is taken to be exported out of the country. The second is that it is stolen and sold to a buyer here with a new false identity and the third is that it is going to be stripped for parts. Obviously in some cases too, cars are stolen to be used in serious crime.”
When stealing high-powered, high-value cars, for the car thief there is no substitute for having the keys and this remains the easiest way to make off with cars with increased security. Thieves often break into houses to get them, but often it is way easier than that. Garland tells of thieves using bamboo to get through letterboxes to tag a set. However they aren’t afraid to break into a house either.
This leads us on the big question that surrounds this type of crime. Do you leave the keys out, where if your house is broken into they will be found quickly or do you take the keys to bed and risk perhaps the intruder coming up the stairs, possibly with violent intent? “Some people don’t want to take up keys to bed and you can understand that, but then sometimes it is made way too easy for the thieves,” says Garland. “So it can be a case of you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” Is there an official Garda line on this? “No, there isn’t. It is wherever you choose to put your keys, but make it as awkward as possible to get at them.”
Garland hasn’t seen an increase of instances of thieves going upstairs for keys and says it is thankfully still a rare occurrence. “Most people tend to leave them downstairs, on a table, in a coat pocket so the thieves know where to look but we have been lucky in that there have been very few aggravated circumstances where people are forced to hand over the keys. Most of the criminals we talk to will tell you that if they are actually disturbed or challenged, they will run.”
For Garland, the tracker is an obvious solution. “If the car is fitted with a tracker there is an almost 100 per cent recovery rate.” With trackers costing a few hundred euro now, this would seem like the kind of optional extra that must be fitted to any expensive car, perhaps more vital than those wheels or that sunroof. That is, if you plan on keeping it.
Garda target: reimported stolen vehicles
GARDAÍ AREcarrying out an operation aimed at uncovering stolen vehicles which have been originally stolen in Ireland, have UK identities put on them and are then resold to Irish customers as UK imports.
Operation Swallow is being run by the Garda stolen vehicle unit in conjunction with the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). It started about three weeks ago and so far 10 vehicles have been recovered. Gardaí suspect a group of criminals, based in London with connections in Ireland, are behind the thefts. “The vehicles are right across the board, from 4x4s to family saloons, to commercial vehicles,” says Det Sgt Finbarr Garland, head of the Garda stolen vehicles unit.
The gang are believed to have obtained a number of stolen V5 forms (the UK equivalent of a Vehicle Registration Certificate) as well as good quality copies of V5s and chassis numbers of the cars are being altered.
“They are identifying a car for sale in England and getting a HPI check on the car,” says Garland. This identity is then given to a stolen Irish car, before being sold again in the Irish market as a UK import.
It is only when the English V5 is returned to the UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency that it discovered that the documents and identity are fake.
Garland advises buyers of private sale UK imports to check with the DVLA.