Vehicle ID theft episodes on the rise

24 Nov 09

There has been a significant rise in the number of calls made by police to the International Security Register, checking on the details of suspicious vehicles.

By Brian Sims

Despite a recorded downturn in car crime, with a 66% reduction posted between 1995 and 2008, Wendy Rowe – the managing director of Retainagroup – has this year seen a significant rise in the number of calls made to the International Security Register (ISR) by members of the police service needing to check the details of suspicious vehicle.

Criminals reason that a vehicle they have stolen needs a new identity if they are going to sell it on or use it for another crime. Generally, they achieve this by changing its number plates – or, in the case of professional cloning, the Vehicle Identity Number (VIN) as well – to those of a similar vehicle which has a perfectly legal owner or has been ‘written off’.

Vehicles marked and registered by Retainagroup have a unique code, the manufacturer’s logo and the telephone number of the ISR permanently etched into their windows. The police can check the etched code immediately any time of the day or night and establish whether it matches the correct details held on the ISR.

This successful vehicle security marking and registration system, established over 20 years ago, protects millions of vehicles against theft and significantly increases the rate of recovery. Police across the country are given immediate help to clear up crimes which would be impossible to identify without the Retainagroup System and the ISR.

Long list of successful discoveries

During the last month, among a long list of successes, ISR operators detected a Toyota Land Cruiser with incorrect VIN and registration plate that had been in a Met Police pound for three months, a Land Rover Discovery on false plates in Suffolk, a cloned Lexus IS200 in Essex and a Toyota Avensis abandoned without plates in an overnight car park in Yorkshire.

Another perfect illustration of how the system detects cloning was the seizure of four vehicles by the ports authority in Dubai just prior to release to a local agent representing the importer.

The vehicles had been professionally cloned and did not appear on the Interpol stolen vehicle database. Police checked the etched codes with the ISR, and three of the vehicles were identified as having been stolen. The fourth vehicle had not been marked and registered on the ISR.

Wendy Rowe hopes that insurers will help to defeat the rise in identity theft by rewarding vehicle manufacturers with a worthwhile benefit for protecting their vehicles against it.

Rowe told SMT Online that those companies already marking and registering new vehicles sold in the UK (Alpha Romeo, Daihatsu, Fiat, Iveco, Kia, Mazda, Proton, Saab, Subaru, Suzuki and SsangYong) are demonstrating a real concern for their customers and for members of the police service involved in the frontline fight against professional criminals.