Cash-strapped European governments have been fighting a parasitic drain on their tax revenues from fuel theft and the tax fraud that goes along with it. According to a report from Bloomberg, individual governments are losing anywhere from 100 million to 1.3 billion euros ($133 million to $1.7 billion at today's rates) due to the scams. The increase in theft and fra
A drunk driver prevented the theft of a TJ Maxx in Farmington, CT on Wednesday. Okay, not exactly. The drunk driver's car prevented the theft. According to The Hartford Courant, three men swiped $4,500 worth of ladies handbags from the department store, but didn't get very far. Store security noticed the heist and alerted authorities, who were waiting for the pilferers outside the store.
NASCAR is reliable as the Bank of England when it comes to delivering drama on and off the track. Today's off-oval headlines involve Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck series drivers Mike Harmon and Jennifer Jo Cobb (pictured above). A couple of weeks ago, on May 15, Cobb reported that someone stole a transporter from Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing and nearly $300,000 worth of vehicles inside. She told
The National Insurance Crime Bureau has taken a closer look at how often car thieves target the Toyota Prius. As it turns out, the most popular hybrid on US roads has a very low theft rate, and when it does get stolen, law enforcement are quick to return the machine to its rightful owners. All told, 2008-2012 Prius mode
Well this is something you don't see every day. Thieves in Amsterdam have been preying upon unsuspecting Porsche models recently. That may not be unusual in and of itself, but the burglars are not attempting to make off with the entire car. Rather, they are stealing only the HID headlights. But what's most interesting is the purpose behind snatching just the headlamp assemblies.
With money having transitioned from cold hard cash to ones and zeros on a computer screen, stealing someone's personal property has also gone from the romantically dangerous act of train robbing to the Hot Pocket-consuming act of electronic bank hacking. We miss the good old days when miscreants gathered up a posse, left town at a gallop and met the 3:10 to Yuma for a little robbery on rails. Fortunately, there are still some Romanian criminals out there who share our nostalgia.
By all accounts, vehicle theft is down to some of the lowest levels in over 25 years. Even so, cars are still getting pilfered every day, and LoJack has gone through the trouble of crafting a detailed infographic displaying some of the more interesting information associated with the 10,251 LoJack-equipped vehicles that were stolen and then recovered last year. The company says that, of all vehicl
Full disclosure: Two of my friends had their cars broken into in downtown Detroit last week. These incidents happened within days of each other along the same city block in the entertainment district behind Detroit's Fillmore and Fox theaters – the exact area that this story references.
A car thief in La Porte, Indiana recently put his own spin on the old smash-and-grab routine. The enterprising individual drove a flatbed truck that would typically be used for logging onto a car lot after hours on Sunday, October 16. Our man hopped out and used a giant crane to hook a 2008 Jeep Wrangler through the roof and drop it onto th
There's nothing worse than a bored law enforcement officer, as a few Beverly, Massachusetts residents learned firsthand when the local police went around checking vehicles for unlocked doors and open windows. Owners received warnings for failing to protect their property and officers proceeded to lock every door they could, including vehicles with their keys still inside.
A vehicle is stolen every 33 seconds in the United States. And many of those thefts could be prevented. That's a pretty sobering thought, especially given that only about 57% of those vehicles end up being recovered. Drivers need to be ever vigilant in protecting their car from thieves.
What a terrible feeling. You walk outside, ready to head out to work or maybe to a friend's house, and your vehicle is gone. Auto theft is a $6.4-billion-per-year problem. In fact, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration built a handy infographic to illustrate just how big of a problem vehicle theft has become.
What seems more plausible: that a thief dropped down from a dealership's roof, Mission Impossible-style, to boost a Lamborghini? Or that the car in question belonged to a chef? In an alternate reality where the world actually makes sense, the answer would ostensibly be "neither," but we're talking about California here.
Police in Seattle have turned to social media in an effort to help recover stolen vehicles. By sending out a Tweet that describes the liberated vehicle, authorities are hoping someone in the network of followers will spot it and report the vehicle's location. The Twitter account being used by the SPD goes by the handle Jeff Glucker
According to reports, a ring of 18 workers at BMW's plant in Munich have been stealing from the German automaker for years. It seems the individuals would stop the lines for fake quality control checks and make off with the goods to be sold on the open market. The most lucrative business reportedly centered around reselling seats through internet auctions.
Stolen Cadillac Escalade – Click above to watch the video after the break
When stealing a vehicle, we imagine the last thing on a thief's mind is thinking is about type of fuel their "new" car requires. However, that's something Daniel Boxall should have considered after acquiring a new set of wheels through less than legal means.
2010 Audi A3 TDI – Click above for high-res image gallery
What a theft-proof car requires – Click above to view the image after the jump
The beeping grows louder, more confident even, as the signal shows more bars and the directional arrow grows more sure of itself. We're getting closer to finding my car, using a few simple and clear cues delivered by a LoJack tracking computer. ??D.J. Thompson, Director of Law Enforcement for LoJack and a retired Connecticut State Trooper who served eight years as a detective in the auto theft uni
