Entries Tagged 'vehicle theft' ↓
January 29th, 2008 — corruption, terrorism, vehicle theft, crime, political correctness, sex offenses, counterjihad, Islam, Australia
Former policeman Tim Priest saw it begin
Tim Priest, a retired detective, gave this talk on November 12 [2003] to a Quadrant dinner in Sydney.
Excerpts are presented here, interspersed with comments by 1389. Emphasis and hyperlinks are mine.
IT WAS ABOUT 1995 to 1996 that the emergence of Middle Eastern crime groups was first observed in New South Wales. Before then they had been largely known for individual acts of anti-social behaviour and loose family structures involved in heroin importation and supply as well as motor vehicle theft and conversion. The one crime that did appear organised before this period was insurance fraud, usually motor vehicle accidents and arson. Because these crimes were largely victimless, they were dealt with by insurance companies and police involvement was limited. But from these insurance scams, a generation of young criminals emerged to become engaged in more sophisticated crimes, such as extortion, armed robbery, organised narcotics importation and supply, gun running, organised factory and warehouse break-ins, car theft and conversion on a massive scale including the exporting of stolen luxury vehicles to Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries.
Notice that, whenever fraud, vehicle theft, and other property crimes are not adequately addressed, the perpetrators become emboldened and move on to other, more serious offenses.
Tim Priest explains that the existing Crime Intelligence structure was dismantled, just when it should have begun investigating a new set of offenders.
As the police began to gather and act on intelligence on these emerging Middle Eastern gangs the first of the series of events took place. The New South Wales Police was restructured under Peter Ryan. Crime Intelligence, the eyes and ears of all police forces throughout the world, was dismantled overnight and a British-style intelligence unit was created. The formation of this unit and its functions has been best described by Dr Richard Basham — as a library stocking outdated books. The new Crime Intelligence and Information Section became completely reactive. It received crime intelligence from the field and stored it. Almost no relevant intelligence was ever dispensed to operational police from 1997 until I left in 2002. It was a disgrace…
But even more frustrating for operational police were the activities of this ethnic crime group, activities that set it apart from almost all others bar the Cabramatta 5T. The Lebanese groups were ruthless, extremely violent, and they intimidated not only innocent witnesses, but even the police that attempted to arrest them. As these crime groups encountered less resistance in terms of police operations and enforcement, their power grew not only within their own communities, but also all around Sydney — except in Cabramatta, where their fear of the South-East Asian crime groups limited their forays. But the rest of Sydney became easy pickings.
The police force became weakened by mismanagement: cronyism, ineptitude, loss of expertise, and the desire to avoid outside scrutiny.
Lacking the moxie to go after the most dangerous and well-connected criminals, many of the police instead selectively pursued those individuals and groups who could not retaliate and who thus were more “politically correct” targets.
The second in the series of events began to take shape with Peter Ryan’s executive leadership team. Under Ryan’s nose they began to carve up the New South Wales Police and form little kingdoms where a senior police officer ruled almost untouched by outside influence. They then appointed their own commanders in the police stations. Almost all of them had little or no street experience; but they in turn brought along their friends as duty officers, similarly inexperienced. Some of the experience these police counted on their resumes included stints at Human Resources, the Academy, the Police Band in one case, the various cubby-holes in Police Headquarters, almost no operational policing experience — yet they were tasked to lead. Never has the expression “the blind leading the blind” been more appropriate.
The impact that this leadership team had on day-to-day operational policing was disastrous. In many of the key areas that were experiencing rapid rises in Middle Eastern crime, these new leaders became more concerned with relations between the police and ethnic minorities than with emerging violent crime. The power and influence of the local religious and minority leaders cannot be overstated. Police began to use selective law enforcement. They selected targets that were unlikely to use their ethnic background and cultural beliefs to hinder police investigations or arrests. It was mostly Anglo-Saxons and Asians that were the targets, because they were under-represented by religious leaders and the media. They were soft targets…
In hundreds upon hundreds of incidents police have backed down to Middle Eastern thugs and taken no action and allowed incidents to go unpunished. Again I stress the unbelievable influence that local politicians and religious leaders played in covering up the real state of play in the south-west.
The third event was the reforming of Criminal Investigations into a centrally controlled body called Crime Agencies. All the specialist crime squads were done away with: Arson, Armed Robbery, Drugs, Organised Crime, Special Breaking, Consorting, Vice, Gaming, Motor Vehicle Theft were wrapped up into one-size-fits-all. Ryan once boasted that by the time he finished retraining the New South Wales Police, constables could investigate a traffic accident in the morning and a homicide in the afternoon, a statement that summed up his Alice-in-Wonderland policing theories. All the expertise and experience evaporated overnight…
As if all that were not enough, the management began collecting statistics on just six crimes - a list that excluded the major offenses associated with organized crime.
Having to meet these standards forced the police on the street to focus even less on the growing problem of organized crime.
The final straw for the New South Wales Police was the OCR — Op Crime Review, which Peter Ryan and his executive team came up with. It was loosely based on the groundbreaking Compstat program of the New York Police Department, the brainchild of Commissioner William Bratton. The difference between Ryan’s OCR and the NYPD Compstat was that the NYPD model covered everything on the criminal waterfront. The Ryan-inspired OCR had just six crimes. And those six included domestic violence, random breath testing, theft, robbery, assaults and motor vehicle theft — no drugs, organised crime, firearms, shootings, attempted murders, homicides. The crimes that instil fear into the average citizen were ignored, and with plenty of innovative answers as to why. The OCR focused police attention on a limited number of crimes and allowed far more serious and deadly crimes to get out of control…
With no organised crime function, no gang unit except for the South-East Asian Strike Force, the New South Wales Police turned against every convention known to Western policing in dealing with organised crime groups. In effect the Lebanese crime gangs were handed the keys to Sydney.
The most influential of the Middle Eastern crime groups are the Muslim males of Telopea Street, Bankstown, known as the Telopea Street Boys. They and their associates have been involved in numerous murders over the past five years, many of them unprovoked fatal attacks on young Australian men for no other reason than that they are “Skips”, as they call Australians. They have been involved in all manner of crime on a scale we have never seen before. Ram-raids on expensive stores in the city are epidemic. The theft of expensive motor vehicles known as car-jacking is increasing at an alarming rate. This crime involves gangs finding a luxury motor vehicle parked outside a restaurant or hotel and watching until the occupants return to drive home. The car is followed, the victims assaulted at gunpoint, and the vehicle stolen. The vehicles are always around or above the $100,000 mark and are believed to be taken to warehouses before being shipped interstate or to the Middle East…
Australia’s racial vilification laws, along with the entire “multiculturalism” industry, worked together to keep the growing debacle concealed from public scrutiny.
Tim Priest explained where this willful blindness would eventually lead:
I wonder whether the inventors of the racial hatred laws introduced during the golden years of multiculturalism ever took into account that we, the silent majority, would be the target of racial violence and hatred. I don’t remember any charges being laid in conjunction with the gang rapes of south-western Sydney in 2001, where race was clearly an issue and race was used to humiliate the victims. But then, unbelievably, a publicly-funded document produced by the Anti-Discrimination Board called “The Race for Headlines” was circulated, and it sought not only to cover up race as a motive for the rapes, but to criticise any accurate media reporting on this matter as racially biased. It worries many operational police that organisations like the Anti-Discrimination Board, the Privacy Council and the Civil Liberties Council have become unaccountable and push agendas that don’t represent the values that this great country was built on.
The Middle Eastern crime groups and their associates number in the thousands, not the hundreds as the government and senior police would have you believe. It is the biggest crime problem we have ever faced, and it is growing. Hardly a day goes past without some violent crime involving a “male of Middle Eastern appearance”, though I see lately that description is watered down now to include “and / or Mediterranean appearance”. To an operational policeman, there is a noticeable difference between an Italian and a Lebanese male.
That these groups of males can roam a city and assault, rob and intimidate at will can no longer be denied or excused. You need only to look at Paris and other European countries that have had mass immigration from Middle Eastern countries to see the sort of problems we can expect in years to come. My prediction is that within ten years, Middle Eastern crime groups will spread rapidly across Australia as they seek to expand their enterprises. There will be no-go areas in south-western Sydney, just like Paris.
Only recently I have seen quotes from senior police and retired police who claim that race is not the issue in organised crime. Those statements are stupid and dangerous. Organised crime groups with the exception of the bikies are almost always ethnically based — any experienced detective will tell you that. The days of Anglo-Saxon gangs are almost gone, with the exception of one or two local beach gangs…
(H/T: Gramfan)
January 25th, 2008 — incident tracking, counterjihad, crime, ecoterrorism, vehicle theft, wildfire, disaster preparedness, cellular, Australia, Russia, trees, Europe
Triggered by cellular phones?
Remember all of the discussion in the summer of 2007 about wildfires in California and in Greece? Many people raised questions about whether some of those fires were, in fact, ecoterrorism. There was also some evidence that devices made from cellular phones may have been used to ignite wildland fires. This is plausible enough, considering that remote bombs triggered by cellular phones have been used in other terrorist attacks. But after the fires were extinguished, the story disappeared from the news.
These mysterious remote cell phone bombs have now surfaced - in California.
San Jose and Santa Clara police chiefs announced Wednesday the results of a massive sting operation in their cities. Operation Meltdown, as the joint effort was called, netted investigators hundreds of criminals, tons of stolen copper, dozens of stolen cars and weapons, and in one case, homemade bombs.
A Fremont man was arrested in October as part of Operation Meltdown. He is accused of trying to sell the officers improvised explosive devices capable of being denoted remotely by a cell phone. During a news conference at San Jose Police headquarters Wednesday morning, police showed a video, recorded by hidden camera, of the suspect demonstrating the technology to officers by detonating a bomb for them.
Operation Meltdown was begun in March 2007. Undercover officers from both departments opened a fake metal-recycling business in the city of Santa Clara called Jose Clara Co-Op.
Within days, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said, customers started showing up offering to sell what appeared to be stolen copper. Over the course of the next year, the undercover officers purchased 14 tons of copper with a street vale of almost $100,000. Soon after the officers began buying the copper, though, Davis said visitors to the recycling shop started offering to sell other stolen goods. The officers eventually purchased 40 stolen vehicles and 74 firearms, including 21 assault weapons.
Over the life of the operation, Davis said, 273 suspects were investigated, 63 of whom were arrested over the course of the investigation. Another 73 suspects were picked up during a sweep Tuesday. There are still another 70 suspects with outstanding warrants yet to be arrested…
Vehicle theft was also part of the picture, including some mighty fancy rides:
40 stolen vehicles were purchased. The vehicles include a BMW, Porsche Carrera, Nissan 350Z, Audi, Toyota MR2, SUV’s, sedans, motorcycles and a new Ford Edge SUV.
Who is involved?
The article mentioned that “many of the suspects were identified as gang members,” but no suspects were named, nor were the gangs identified.
In case you have any doubts:
U.S. officials monitoring terrorist web sites have discovered a call for using forest fires as weapons against “crusader” nations, in what may explain some recent wildfires in places like southern California and Greece.
A terrorist website was discovered recently that carried a posting that called for “Forest Jihad.” The posting was listed on the Internet on Nov. 26 and reported in U.S. intelligence channels last week.
The statement, in Arabic, said that “summer has begun so do not forget the Forest Jihad.”
The writer called on all Muslims in the United States, Europe, Russia and Australia to “start forest fires.”
The posting quoted imprisoned Al Qaida terrorist Abu Musab Al-Suri, as saying “Jihad is an art just like poetry, music, and the fine arts. There are people that draw and there are others that are jihadists. They both act upon inspiration.”
(h/t Scarlett Crusader)
November 20th, 2007 — terrorism, Saudi Arabia, vehicle theft, crime, CzechRebel (author), 1389, counterjihad, al Qaeda, vehicles
Stolen vehicles may go where we cannot follow them
1389’s SUV was recently stolen, from a parking deck that happened to be in a river port city in the US. The police came up with nothing, so we eventually started looking to purchase a replacement vehicle. When we mentioned our predicament to a car salesman, he told us, “That was a diesel, so it probably ended up being shipped in a container to Saudi Arabia.”
Ouch. It had been a good vehicle, and not one that could easily be replaced.
As a practical matter, there was little, if anything, that we ourselves could have done to prevent the theft. Systems such as LoJack are generally a good idea, but that wouldn’t have helped in this instance, because the vehicle was stolen in an area where it wasn’t available. The police can help only when the vehicle turns up either in their own jurisdiction, or in another jurisdiction that shares information with them.
Stolen vehicles and jihadist terrorism
Considering that we don’t want any more vehicles stolen, I figured that it was time to do some more research.
Everything I found confirmed my suspicion that there is indeed a strong connection between stolen vehicles and jihadist terrorism.
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Once a vehicle has reached the Middle East, it’s gone
Except in Iraq, the U.S. and other western nations do not have the option to use their own police or military to trace and retrieve stolen vehicles from the Muslim Middle East. Nor do the local or national authorities offer any real cooperation. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or the current regimes in Kuwait or Yemen or Dubai, are not all that terribly concerned about protecting the property rights of infidels living overseas.
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Stolen vehicles are used to commit other crimes
Stolen vehicles are less traceable than rental cars and the like. They are used as getaway cars, for smuggling persons as well as contraband goods, you name it.
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The profits from selling stolen vehicles and parts go to fund more terrorist violence
Stolen vehicles and parts get good prices from overseas buyers.
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A stolen vehicle may be used as a car or truck bomb
The last place you would want to see your car is on the news, being used as a car or truck bomb to attack U.S. or coalition troops, or perhaps Israelis or other innocent civilians. One source says that the Chevy Suburban is a particular favorite for this purpose. If this happens, your vehicle’s demise may be featured on YouTube as a scene in a jihadist recruitment video. True, you might never see enough of the vehicle in one piece to identify it as yours, but still…
What can be done?
Never mind political correctness - use the clues that we have
Criminals involved in any form of illicit international trade, including stolen vehicles, don’t sell their products randomly all over the world. They network with relatives or friends who are located in one or two specific countries, generally the home countries of the people involved. Catching the perpetrators means tracing the pathway back from the destination, while resolutely ignoring any false accusations of “racial profiling” and so forth.
For example, suppose people in Saudi are seen driving SUVs that have Florida license tags or dealer plaques. The SUVs probably are going out through the busiest port, which would be Miami. The likeliest perpetrators would be Saudi Arabians, or people with ties to Saudi Arabia, in south Florida, who buy and sell vehicles, or who export vehicles and parts. One or more of the people involved, perhaps container truck drivers, must have access to the port facilities. Of course, following the money will show where the proceeds are going.
Better inspection of outgoing containers
Because this aspect of vehicle theft has to do with international trade in stolen goods, some responsibility for stemming the tide falls upon the federal or national governments of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the EU. Everybody has been worried about dirty bombs, loose nukes, bioweapons, and other WMDs coming into the U.S. and other countries via container ships, and rightfully so! The U.S. has stepped up its efforts to inspect incoming shipping containers and other cargo. But the same effort needs to be made to inspect outgoing shipping containers and cargo, to stop al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations from smuggling stolen goods and other contraband out of the U.S. and other western countries.
Fellow 1389 Blog team admin CzechRebel points out that this is like a stage magic trick: the bad guys let everybody focus on just one aspect of the problem (in this case, incoming freight); meanwhile, nobody notices that they’re pulling a fast one in some other quarter (namely, outbound smuggling). We need to monitor every major potential security vulnerability, not just the obvious ones.
States, provinces, and localities need to work harder to share stolen vehicle identification data
While I’d be the first to say that there’s plenty of room for improvement at the federal or national level, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, the fact is that most of the job of stopping vehicle theft has to be done locally. States, provinces, counties, and cities must streamline the task of sharing stolen vehicle identification data, even across national boundaries. This problem is by no means limited to the U.S.!
Private companies might even start making it their business to collect “hot sheet” data from all over the world. For a reasonable fee, they could offer it not only to governmental bodies, but also to everyone else who needs that information, including prospective purchasers who want to be sure that they are getting good title.
Stolen U.S. vehicles end up as bombs in Iraq, FBI says
WASHINGTON: Fifteen years after U.S. states were directed to share motor vehicle information in a national database, only nine states have done so, making it nearly impossible to identify hundreds of thousands of stolen vehicles - including a small but steady number that end up as car bombs in Iraq.
FBI officials said they believe the database could help break up far-flung terrorist networks, which are using vehicles stolen and smuggled from the United States.
Bought and sold on the international black market, cars and trucks help fund criminal operations and can be turned into the terrorist weapon of choice against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians: vehicles packed with explosives. The FBI declined to estimate how many stolen U.S. cars have turned up as car bombs in Iraq but said the number is believed to be at least in the dozens [more]…
More Information:
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October 26th, 2007 — school terrorism, vehicle theft, crime, incident tracking, vehicles, security
Be on the lookout for a 40-foot yellow school bus, marked with Merryville Schools, Unit #586 and Fleet #N63989. It was stolen from Merryville Schools, 1370 Baseline Road in Roseville, California.
If you have any information about the bus, please call Roseville police at (916)774-5000.
Stolen school buses can be misused in all sorts of ways too ugly to contemplate. See:
Are these stolen school buses going to Mexico?
- Has anyone requested the assistance of the Mexican government in tracking down missing school buses?
- If so, what was the outcome?
Learn more about homeland security on the road:
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October 7th, 2007 — school terrorism, vehicle theft, crime, incident tracking, vehicles, security
Seems there’s been a rash of school buses disappearing from the Houston area.
The National Terror Alert website points out some ominous possibilities:
We don’t know what purpose the thieves had in mind for the buses.
Best-case scenario: The perpetrators are caught. No more school bus thefts, no more worries.
If we’re lucky: The buses are headed for third-world countries, where they’ll be sold, repainted, and put to work on local bus routes. Or they’re off to a chop shop to be resold as parts.
If we’re not: One or more of the buses are being hidden somewhere, to be used for future criminal activities or for perpetrating acts of terrorist violence. School buses provide effective cover for attacks upon schools or school-age children.
How aware are police and sheriff’s departments of this security vulnerability?
- These buses could be anywhere. We would like to know whether an up-to-date list of stolen school buses, with VIN numbers and physical descriptions, is being circulated to state and local public safety departments throughout the U.S. If this has not been done, it certainly should be!
- If you work for a police or sheriff’s department, we suggest that you discuss this with the appropriate person, so that your department will have the best chance of locating the missing school buses if they should turn up in your jurisdiction.
- If you serve on a school board, please communicate with your fellow board members, and with your state and local public safety officials, regarding school counterterrorism preparedness.
- If you work at any facility that repaints or services buses, pay close attention to used school buses that are brought in by individuals or organizations that you are not familiar with. If you suspect that the bus may be stolen, call the authorities to check out the VIN number.
“What else can I do?”
- Keep an eye out for any school bus or yellow-painted bus that appears to be abandoned, or is being driven, parked, or stored in any unusual location where you would not ordinarily expect to find a school bus. Call the authorities to check out anything suspicious.
- Know who will be driving the bus for your school, church, or non-profit organization. If the bus and driver are provided by a transportation service, be sure that the company is performing solid background checks on their drivers.
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