Car thefts Top Cop

Ten years ago, auto theft was not big business organized crime that it has become today. About 97% of stolen cars were recovered then. Today, that figure has dropped to 60%. Some attribute the change to a more organized crime structure. Others, to the opening of the border following the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Ron Giblin, Insurance Crime Prevention Bureau (ICPB) vice president of marketing development and client services, takes a diplomatic stance and does not attribute blame for the problem. But he is less than diplomatic in describing its scope.

“Identifying stolen exported cars is like finding a needle in a haystack today,” he confesses about the growing crisis of stolen cars being smuggled out of North America in the more than 20 million containers that enter and leave continental ports annually.

The tone of Giblin’s voice is not of defeat, or of being overwhelmed, but illustrates just how difficult a job the organization he chairs, the North American Export Committee, has in its sights. Founded in 1995 by industry stakeholders, including U.S. Customs, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) and its Canadian counterpart, the ICPB), NAEC is charged with examining technology and sharing information in the fight to prevent stolen cars from being smuggled over international borders. “Ten years ago, the recovery rate was pretty good. Today, that number has dropped significantly.” Giblin does not attribute all of the 40% non-recovery rate to the opening of international border brought on by NAFTA, but the rise in the non-recovery rate just happens to have coincided with the implementation of the trade agreement. “How many of that 40% are being exported? Who knows? What we do see is that more and more vehicles are being legally exported under NAFTA. In my law enforcement experience, I’ve found when something is done legally, the bad guys will start doing it too. There is definitely a connection.”

Top cop

The award on Ron Giblin’s desk honoring service with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is misleading. He may have left the RCMP in 1989 as the medal denotes, but the drive to investigate and stop fraud and theft has remained with him to this day.

Giblin joined the RCMP commercial crime division in 1976 after a seven-year tenure in the banking industry. He had originally intended on becoming an officer when he left St. George William University in Montreal in 1969 but RCMP rules at the time forbid married men from joining the force. Those rules changed seven years later, and Giblin assumed a career that would take him from Niagara Falls, through to Toronto, Quebec and finally, Prince Edward Island. He was motivated by the police work, the ground level investigation and apprehension of the criminal elements, intrigued by organized crime. “You’d plug one whole, close an investigation and a new one would open up,” he says with equal parts disgust and amazement about the criminal mind.

He left the force in 1989 and joined the ICPB as a fraud investigator. The job let him to continue the investigative life of police work but for the private sector. “It was a lot like police work. Most of the cases were routine. But every once in a while you’d get your nose where it shouldn’t be.” In 1994, he moved to the Canadian Automobile Insurance Bureau in 1994 as a national manager and became vice president of marketing development and client services at the ICPB just two years ago.

He had become an administrator, but the life was not behind him. Giblin admits to keeping closer tabs in ongoing investigations, still eager to live a little of the life. So it is little surprise that the timing could not be better that in 1998, he was appointed chairman of NAEC, then a three-year old organization that was just gaining more support among the government, the enforcement community and auto theft stakeholders.

A smarter, more organized criminal

Car theft today is more organized, more sophisticated and bigger business than ever before, maintains Giblin. Years ago, the average car thief was a kid looking for a joyride. Today, that has changed with organized criminals involving stolen cars in a wider array of criminal activity including drug, weapon and counterfeit money distribution. “It’s a business now, and a very big business, you could call it an industry,” Giblin says. He recounts a story of a recent slew of arrests by Quebec police stopping 300 stolen cars from being shipped to Russia. “They not only found stolen cars though, they also found counterfeit money and weapons. These types of discoveries are opening up a lot of eyes and bringing auto theft to a new level.”

The enforcement community is not yet properly armed for car theft as big business, some might say — and Giblin most definitely intimates — U.S. ports require exported cars to be available for examination by Customs 72 hours before exportation. Canadian ports currently have no such regulation and as such, are very summarily checked for fraudulent vehicle information numbers. Car thieves are also routinely given a slap on the wrist, he says. “But this could change. We’re seeing a movement towards charging these offenders as organized criminals, by showing benefits derived from other crimes.”

Stakeholder support

NAEC stakeholders meet twice a year at ports across North America. The organization will converge upon Toronto in April for the first conference of 2000, Toronto being a major railroad hub.

According to Giblin, the typical NAEC conference involves subcommittee reports and information sharing between various enforcement agencies and ports. Many innovations in the North American auto theft fight have emerged from the conference, victories that restore some of that law enforcement pride in Giblin. “We’ve expanded the use of technology at ports and among insurers and law enforcement. The Motor Vehicle Registry in Canada will have a marked impact on reducing thieves from using stolen vehicle information numbers.”

NAEC is currently lobbying port members to utilize gamma ray technology that essentially x-rays exported containers to find cars not listed on the manifest. “The Toronto conference will examine the results test ports have found using this technology,” he says. The U.S. government has already purchased 50 gamma ray units to monitor incoming containers for terrorist threat purposes, a sign law enforcement communities are ready to embrace this technology.

NAEC’s organization mandate dictates one-year chairmanship terms rotated between a Canadian and U.S. representative. Giblin’s chairmanship was extended past one year. He says the key to NAEC future success will be comprehensive information sharing and enforcement co-ordination between all key members. “You can’t open every container. We have got to be smart, we have got to use the information at our disposal, and we have to lobby our enforcement communities to step up their efforts to foil car theft rings.”

Canadian law enforcement will have to get tougher on auto theft to combat the growing crisis of vehicles illegally exported, says Ron Giblin, chairman of the North American Export Committee, a stakeholder organization attempting to ebb the flow of stolen cars across international lines. The sheer numbers surrounding car theft are astronomical. Over 1.5 million vehicles are stolen continent-wide annually. A theft occurs every 21 seconds. It is the most costly property crime in North America, costing the two economies roughly US$7.6 billion annually. “It’s not a problem, but a crisis,” Giblin says. And, unless cross-border cooperation initiatives launched by insurers are treated seriously by the authorities, the crises is going to get a lot worse.