MANILA, Philippines?Metro Manila police arrested six suspected car thieves and confiscated 18 stolen vehicles including nine taxis and one school van, in a month, a police report showed.

NCRPO Director Roberto Rosales reported this accomplishment on Tuesday, even as he revealed that carjackers continued to have connections in the Land Transportation Office that enabled them to get genuine license plates.

Members of the Traffic Enforcement Unit of the National Capital Regional Police Office arrested the suspects in three separate operations and afterwards filed complaints against the suspects for violating the anti-fencing and anti-carjacking laws.

One suspect, identified as Clint Harry Cuevas, 23, was accosted last month at the Villamor Airbase because of his unregistered van.

He had been using the van as a school bus in his hometown Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, but a check with police records showed that the van was stolen in Manila, Supt. Maristelo Manalo, chief of the RTEU, said. Police also recovered from Cuevas a .45-pistol with a magazine loaded with five ammunitions, Manalo said.

Two other suspects namely Ferdinand Olaez, 40, and Jessie Garcia, 33, were arrested in an entrapment operation after an informant tipped off the police that stolen vehicles were being sold in Villamor Airbase in Pasay City.

Rominick Castro and Wilfred Cuenca, meanwhile, were arrested for possessing motorcycles with fake LTO registration documents.

Manalo said other suspects surrendered to the NCRPO after police found out that they owned ?carnapped vehicles.?

NCRPO Director Roberto Rosales showed to the media on Tuesday all the seized vehicles lined up in front of the administration building of NCRPO headquarters.

?I want to emphasize that these taxi units had no official records at the Land Transportation and Regulatory Board and LTO (Land Transportation Office),? Rosales said at the press conference.

He said the nine taxi units had spurious LTO and LTFRB documents and plate numbers which were in the list of plate numbers recovered in the NCRPO-led raid at an LTO office on July 7.

During recent police operations, police discovered a new modus operandi called "Kambal" wherein two of the impounded taxi units had the same plate number (TXU-437) and franchise name.

He said the RTEU tapped informants who helped in tracking down carjackers, middlemen, fixers, financiers of carjacking operations and fencers.

"But up to now, carnappers still operate at the LTO... How come they could easily get plate numbers and genuine (registration) forms from LTO? Where do these come from?"

Rosales vowed no letup in NCRPO?s anti-carjacking operations.

He said the public could expect more arrests and recovery of vehicles in the coming days.