Autoblog

That criminals go to great lengths to accomplish their goals is not news. How they do so can be interesting, however. ABC News has posted a report on its Blotter website detailing an FDLE study on how smugglers "clone" vehicles to make their criminal enterprises easier to run. A few thousand dollars can net a bad guy some high quality decals or wraps that help transform regular trucks into replicas of actual, branded delivery or municipal vehicles. Throw in an official (or official-looking) uniform and criminals can hide in plain sight, traveling freely without raising suspicion. The ABC report tells of one traffic stop in which authorities stopped what appeared to be a Cable/Satellite service van only to find hundreds of pounds of cocaine inside. The van's disguise even included a toll-free number for other drivers to report bad driving. Anyone who called it found themselves on a phone sex line. Smugglers also appear to have a healthy sense of irony if the tale of a bust in Arizona is any indication. There, border patrol agents caught someone ferrying 31 illegal aliens in the back of a van. Its markings? U.S. Border Patrol. Read the whole story here.

[Source: ABC News via Schneier on Security via Instapundit)

Click image for a gallery of '05 - '07 F-250 and F-350 Super Duty trucks

If the Ford Escape Hybrid is "The Candidate's Choice," then the automaker's big, bad Super Duty trucks are "The Smuggler's Choice." You see, unfortunately for truck owners, drug and human traffickers are "choosing" to steal them from the public to use in their nefarious endeavors. The reasons are simple: they're big (plenty of contraband can be carried), rugged (they can handle running off-road in the border areas), powerful (handy when running from the police), and apparently easy to make off with (they can be "stolen with a screwdriver" according to the Houston PD). In 2007, 1,245 F-250 and F-350 Super Duties vanished from Houston driveways, a forty percent increase over 2006, and notable when you consider overall car thefts in the city were down. In response, Ford is enhancing vehicle security by using keys embedded with chips required to activate new 2008 trucks' electronic ignition systems. Of course, that may not help win back former owners whose trucks have already been stolen. The Chronicle article tells of one victim whose actions spoke volumes. He switched to Chevy.

[Source: The Houston Chronicle]