Thursday, December 01, 2016

117 stolen cars worth at least $1.3 million, returned to their owners today, the results of a ten-month undercover sting operation in San Diego County. 33 car thieves were arrested... plus one more news story about stolen cars



“In this operation that we call Kwik Boost, the defendants were stealing cars from victims in San Diego and they were selling the vehicles to a place that was undercover – a store front – in order to break up the car into small pieces,” said Summer Stephan, Chief Deputy District Attorney of San Diego County.

Law enforcement shut down the store front located in the Lemon Grove area of East County, putting dozens of car thieves out of business.

The suspects believed they were selling cars to customers, when the vehicles were actually bought by undercover police officers In addition to stealing cars, many of these criminal groups were involved in gun trades and drug deals. Law enforcement agencies seized 51 illegal firearms off the street, along with five pounds of methamphetamine, three kilograms of cocaine and 15 pounds of marijuana, according to Goodbrand.

 About 10,000 vehicles are stolen in San Diego County each year

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Over-100-Stolen-Cars-Returned-to-Owners-in-Undercover-Operation-in-San-Diego-County-404096456.html

Meanwhile, Border Patrol is starting to figure out that they can use facial recognition software to catch car thieves driving stolen cars over the border into Mexico... yeah, there is ZERO give a damn by Mexico about seeing or stopping ANYTHING going INTO or OUT OF Mexico, only the USA is manning the border and keeping things somewhat under a watchful eye as it going across the border into the USA and San Diego

A Border Patrol agent was compiling a list of stolen vehicles. When he conducted border crossing queries on the stolen vehicles, he identified Jose Ernesto Camarillo, David Urbina and others as suspects tied to the cross-border trafficking of at least 81 vehicles.

Photographs taken at the (San Diego suburbs) San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry indicated Camarillo drove about 20 vehicles into Mexico and Urbina drove about 14 since Jan. 1, the affidavit states.

Auto thefts have jumped 16 percent in San Diego County from mid-year 2015 to mid-year 2016, according to the San Diego Association of Governments, which tracks crime trends.

The increase was from 4,778 vehicles stolen to 5,551. That is still a low number compared to the number of vehicles stolen in 2006: 11,901.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-car-thefts-20161101-story.html

So, just this year alone, 36 car thieves in San Diego are out of work.

Ever wonder how many car thieves are taken out of the stealing car business annually, and yet, more keep getting into being car thiefs, and the cars never stop being stolen? Seems like the short term career of those that were arrested before, would be a pretty strong warning to all those who come after

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