Car thieves smell a RATT

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Nov, 1995 by Steven J. Casey

Active liaison with all county law enforcement agencies, other local task forces, and area probation and parole officers augments this information pool. Task force members recruit and carefully supervise informants. They attempt to infiltrate car theft rings using informants and undercover tactics to target the leaders of the organizations, rather than merely arrest the low-level offenders after they deliver one stolen car.

Sideline Operations

Auto theft investigations often become linked to investigations of other crimes. For example, stolen cars and drugs often go hand in hand. In addition, criminals often strip stolen cars and sell the parts. As offshoots of stolen vehicle investigations, RATT detectives have arrested a number of gun runners, drug dealers, and chop-shop operators.

Indeed, in 1994, RATT detectives even became chop-shop operators. They ran two car-stripping operations in borrowed warehouses during undercover operations conducted for several months. Their efforts netted 14 thieves and 21 stolen vehicles.

The task force also handles cases of tractor-trailer theft as a subset of its motor vehicle theft casework. RATT's investigations of stolen tractor-trailers revealed a related crime problem - cargo theft. These crimes involve organized, professional thefts of tractor-trailers, including entire loads of cargo (of any type). Such thefts often do not get reported uniformly, making investigation difficult. For example, in reporting the theft of the tractor-trailer to the police, if the driver does not know the specific cargo in the trailer, it simply gets listed on the theft report as "unknown."

Once alerted to the problem, RATT investigators hand-searched reports in Chula Vista, National City, and San Diego to determine its extent. They found that such thefts had increased 133 percent between 1989 and 1992, amounting to a $7.1 million loss from 177 cargo thefts. The problem's severity led RATT to create the Cargo Team, comprising a sergeant and five investigators, to focus on reducing the number of cargo thefts in the area.

For the most part, RATT's Cargo Team employs the same strategies as the other components of the task force, but with some significant differences. Generally, investigators penetrate cargo theft operations the same way they penetrate auto theft rings - informants, information developed by local police, etc. Money, however, makes the major difference. An undercover investigator can buy a top-quality stolen car for $300 to $400. But for a stolen cargo with a retail value of perhaps $300,000 to $500,000, the cost can be between $10,000 and $20,000. Clearly, that exceeds RATT's local funding, so the task force secured supplemental funding from the FBI.

Successes

From July 1992 to February 1995, RATT's 28 detectives recovered more than 780 stolen vehicles with a combined worth of well over $6.8 million. Detectives made more than 300 arrests, and the team's prosecutors achieved a 100-percent conviction rate, with more than one-half the convicted defendants going to prison. The prison sentence for convicted car thieves in the San Diego area now averages more than 3.5 years. Since RATT's inception, auto theft in San Diego County has dropped 15 percent.