National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

The dividing line between bona fide and mala fide companies is often thin.
The companies involved may include companies that rent out ware houses
(to store cars while they ‘cool down’), shipping compa nies that export cars and
tyre companies (for ‘stashing’ cars in containers). We suspect that car thieves
infiltrate the car-repair sector, as cars are sometimes stolen shortly after they
have been to a garage for servicing.
WODC research showed that two thirds of the criminal groups involved in car
theft were internationally oriented, whereby countries in North and West Africa
were the most frequent sales markets. West Africans (Ghanaians and Nigerians)
play an important role. The stolen vehicles are shipped to Africa via the Dutch
ports and via Antwerp. The West Africans play the role of intermediary between
demand (customers and handlers of stolen goods) and supply (former
Yugoslavian thieves). There were also investigations in which North Africa was
the destination of the stolen cars; in those cases the police were dealing with
Moroccan offenders and offender groups. A regional investigation identified a
criminal organisation that traded in luxury cars obtained in Italy by fraudulent
means. The cars were transported by road to the Netherlands, where they were
loaded into containers for shipping to Morocco via Vlissingen or Rotterdam. All
of the aforementioned function groups turned up in this investigation.
In the past the involvement of Central and Eastern Europeans was established
in cases where whole cars or car parts were exported to Eastern Europe.
According to information from the National Vehicle Crime Information Centre
(LIV), criminals from Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and the former Yugoslavia are
mainly involved in stripping cars, i.e. the cars are stolen for parts. Research by
the National Criminal Intelligence Department (DNRI) showed that criminals from
Eastern Europe and the Balkans are involved in car theft aided by burglary.
Apparently these offenders are not only involved in breaking into the home of
the owner and stealing the car, but also in the handling of stolen cars and the
export to other countries.
According to car theft experts, the involvement of Dutch criminals in organised
car theft should not be underestimated. The groups in question are apparently
involved in stripping and ringing cars. Information from LIV shows that these
groups include criminals from a caravan camp background, originating especially
from the border region between the Netherlands and Germany. The activities
of criminal caravan camp residents in terms of ringing stolen cars are well
known, but according to experts they are also involved in the export. This
suggests that offender groups that were originally more nationally oriented
are starting to operate at the international level.
chapter 4 – Supraregional property crime
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