Locks and Security News: your weekly locks and security industry newsletter
17th April 2024 Issue no. 701
Your industry news - first
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IAATI European event - Romania September 2011
The European Chapter of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI) held their annual training seminar event in Bucharest between the 28th and 30th September, and SBD was amongst the 140 international delegates who attended to learn more about the pan-European situation for vehicle theft.
Whilst the vehicle theft situation varies slightly in each market, strong trends are increasingly common across large parts of Europe, both in the work of criminals and from the authorities who work to stop them.
A recurring theme in the presentations of representatives from a number of national police forces was about a general reduction in budgets and resource for specialist investigators and included requests for commercial partners to consider the possibility of providing assistance so that they can maintain their investigative capabilities. SBD has previously reported this, specifically with regards to the changes planned within the UK. Click here to read this article.
There has been an increase in coordinated cooperation activities, such as the Interpol INVEX database which accumulates stolen vehicle data across national jurisdictions. 34,000 recoveries were attributed to this database during 2010, and Audi use it to feed their FAZIT system which prevents OE servicing and maintenance via their online diagnostic system if the vehicle is registered as stolen.
Rental cars continue to be a global target, with vehicles being hired for a week, driven into a neighbouring country and then sold during this period with falsified documentation. Due to the rental duration, the vehicle is not registered as missing, so even a careful purchaser who makes the required identity checks will not detect the vehicle as stolen.
A lot of discussion centred around Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) and the export routes across Europe whereby vehicles are quickly moved from one country to another to avoid detection in the country where they were stolen. Italian and Eastern European representatives spoke about specific problems in their markets. SBD has summarised the latest OCG problems in our whitepapers Defining Vehicle Theft and Organised Crime and How are thieves stealing modern vehicles?
A practical highlight came as Edilock, one of the event sponsors, demonstrated some interesting equipment capable of programming keys to new vehicles simply by attaching a device to the OBD port without requiring an original key, or any OE access codes. This showed how quickly and easily this could be accomplished by a thief if they have access to the right equipment. Edilock have a policy of vetting each sale and will only sell their products to customers who can prove that they are part of a law enforcement organisation or a member of a recognised automotive or locksmith industry association. However, SBD is aware of other tools that perform a similar job freely available via the internet without such checks. Examples of these tools are reported in our database.
If you didn't meet SBD at this event and you would like to find out more information about the topics discussed, or learn more about the data and analysis mentioned above, please contact the Secure Car Team on +44 1908 305 105 or email [email protected].
12th October 2011