Posted by wetbenang at Wednesday, July 11, 2007

CAR THEFTS: TERRORISTS CONNECTION?

According to the police, luxury vehicles stolen in Malaysia are smuggled overseas for sale to fund terrorist and criminal organisations.
Between January and May of this year, close to 5,000 luxury vehicles were reported stolen in this country for this purpose, an increase of 11.5 per cent compared to the same period last year, says a Bernama report. That's 1,000 vehicles a month.
These vehicles make up part of the three million units stolen from Asia, Europe and North America annually, worth an estimated US$21 billion.
Describing the theft and smuggling of vehicles as a worldwide phenomenon, Federal CID director Datuk Christopher Wan said: “Such proceeds from ill-gotten gains might be used to supply and strengthen criminal or terrorist organisations."
Trafficking and smuggling of stolen vehicles, says Wan, are mainly the work of structured and sophisticated global criminal groups.
No rocket science theory, here. Otherwise they'd have been completely busted by now, kan, despite repeated newspaper headlines claiming they've been at least crippled.
OK, if luxury vehicles are stolen to fund terrorist and criminal organisations, what about the not so luxury makes? What organisations are being funded by the proceeds from their thefts?
A friend of mine lost his car from a parking lot at the Bukit Jalil stadium a couple of days ago.
When we went to lodge a report, the police said car thefts in that particular area were now a regular occurrence.
Assuming that the police can't really do much about the problem -- after all car theft rings are extremely sophisticated and organised -- the parking lot operator at the stadium should at least do something about this.
Install some measures to make it slightly more difficult for car thiefs to drive away from the lot. Think of the interest and peace of mind of the hundreds of your customers who park there on a daily basis.
This is not too much to ask, if you ask me.

 

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Newer Post Older Post Home

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)