Uma Aguilera (9), María Lucrecia Arias (51) or Leonardo Quinteros (49) are just three of the victims killed in assaults in which the targets were cars.
These three are, in addition to being violent, the most recent, but also only some of those registered so far this year.
In all three cases, the violence was such that it even frustrated the very purpose of the assaults, which was to keep the car.
These, although regrettable, are exceptions to the rule, since completed robberies show a sustained increase in recent years.
According to private indicators, such as the one that Ituran recently published,
car theft increased 27% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
But what is behind the rise in the number of car thefts?
During 2023, according to official statistics, more than 43,000 car thefts
were reported throughout the country
.
It is equivalent to 117 per day.
A priori, the main motivation is the illegal market: although there is a lot of logistics that thieves must maintain to carry out their mission, it is still profitable.
A police source, dedicated to the investigation of crimes against automobiles, specifies that these are not private thieves, but rather
members of organizations with notable logistical capabilities
.
He explains to
Clarín
that there are two motivations for the thefts: “On the one hand, there is the auto parts market, but for
particular parts
, not just the total scrapping of the car.
On the other hand, there is the twin car
market
.”
Video
Loop.
I followed the coverage on clarin.com.
Why twin a car?
This police source comments that this practice is, in reality, a coordinating link between several crimes, so as not to leave traces between the commission of these.
A twin car can be sold as a legitimate one at a value somewhat lower than the market value, under the pretext that the seller has
a need or urgency to sell that car
, and the buyer finds out about the scam only at the automobile registry, after having paid a considerable sum.
“A mid-range car, three or five years old, is worth around
20 million pesos
.
They can offer you a model like this for a few million pesos less, and with a folder of documents that appears to be in order.
When you get to the registry, you find out that you were scammed and you lost all your savings,” says this source.
Clarín already reflected the phenomenon of drug traffickers who use these cars to move themselves or transport loads.
Even more ingenious, some use twins as “street safes,” in which
they store drugs, weapons or money to evade raids
on their homes.
Since there is nothing in the documentation of the cars that implicates them, the drug traffickers escape the possible charges that could fall on them if those things were found in their homes.
Video
The thieves' technique was to block the escape with two cars.
The family was able to recover the car thanks to social networks.
Now, what are the logistics that these gangs use to clone cars?
The police source specifies part of the process.
The beginning can occur in two ways: it may be that one of the members appears at an automobile registry and requests a ownership report for such a car with such a license plate;
Or it may also be that they have information that
such a car with such a license plate has been completely destroyed and has not yet been deregistered
.
Thus, once they have the exact data of the car, the most arduous part of the logistics begins.
These bands have specialists in creating
trout patents
in the same way that registries and their suppliers do.
They also have experts in what the jargon calls “nailing”:
chassis and engine numbering engraving.
They file the original numbering of the stolen car and record that of a car still in circulation.
Sometimes, it is not even necessary for a car to be stolen: several car owners receive fines on the other side of the country because there is a car with the same license plate.
Quite an engineering.
In Quilmes, three thieves died after stealing a Toyota Hilux and crashing it into a tree.
Returning to the robberies, this police source specifies that
the largest number occurs in the Buenos Aires suburbs
: the southeastern areas (Lanús, Lomas de Zamora or La Matanza) and central-eastern (San Martín or Tres de Febrero) are the hot areas, that triple the rates of the City.
One hypothesis he uses is that these areas have
many accesses through which thieves can escape
quickly after stealing.
Córdoba capital and Rosario are two other areas that double the average values in the interior of the country, which are similar to those of the City of Buenos Aires.
Increasingly bloody car thefts
Gustavo Trías, president of the Argentine Association of Insurance Companies (AACS), sees another vein for the motivation of car thefts, as well as for the violence observed in the latest cases.
“It's been a decade since car technology changed, and you can no longer 'jump' cars, start them without a key, as was done before.
That's why
armed robbery
proliferates , because they need the key, the owner on board."
Video
</p><p>Security cameras recorded the theft of some Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Ariel Atom from an industrial area.
And he adds another fact that insurance companies consider extremely important: the
lack of foreign currency makes the import of components and spare parts very difficult
.
“75% of the parts are imported, even though the cars are produced or assembled in the country.
This makes it difficult for even insurance companies to obtain spare parts that customers require,” Trías told
Clarín
.
The insurers themselves, he affirms, must raise their rates due to the difficulties in obtaining parts: their prices rise well above inflation.
It is normal, he says, that sometimes, faced with a shortage, the owner of a car turns to other markets, such as the used market or the black market, where the origin of a part is practically unfathomable.
“Both due to the Law of Disassemblies (law 25,761) and due to the technology and control measures in cars (such as the engraving of auto parts), which make theft and smuggling difficult, as well as due to the demand for parts,
a disassembled car and sold in parts is worth, on average, eight times more than the whole thing
,” explains Trías.
And he adds that this disparity in value occurs equally between 0km and cars with a few years on the street.
MG