Central Visayas new hub in movement of stolen cars

[wpgmappity id=”273″]

MANILA, Philippines—The Highway Patrol Group of the Philippine National Police is shifting its attention to Central Visayas, now considered a transshipment hub for vehicles stolen in Luzon.

The HPG director, Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, said the PNP’s anti-car theft drive was moving to Region 7 following the success of its operations in Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao, which appeared to have forced a syndicate  dealing in stolen cars to move  its operations elsewhere.

In a report to PNP Director General Nicanor Bartolome, Espina observed that vehicles stolen in Luzon  often wind up in clandestine automobile shops in Bacolod and Cebu.

He said 12 utility vehicles were recovered in Bohol in two weeks of anti-car theft and interdiction operations. They were mostly private sports utility vehicles, such as Mitsubishi Pajero, Isuzu Crosswind, and Nissan Urvan, and used as public utility vehicles when intercepted, he added.

Espina told Bartolome that the recovery of the “hot cars” in Bohol bolstered the assessment of the HPG that Central Visayas was being used by a syndicate  as a “major transshipment point for the processing and trafficking of stolen motor vehicles from Luzon.”

He said the syndicate involved “a network of armed carjackers who do the actual car theft in Luzon; financiers who buy the freshly-stolen cars; transporters who deliver the stolen cars via the Philippine Nautical Highway to clandestine motor shops in Bacolod and Cebu.”

Espina said there were also “mechanics and craftsmen who do the tampering, repainting and detailing work to give stolen cars a new look; and a network of document forgers, facilitators and corrupt bureaucrats who manufacture official documents to give stolen cars a new identity before these are offered for sale by local used car dealers in Visayas and Mindanao.”

As early as the last quarter of 2011 through early 2012, the HPG operatives reported sighting several suspicious utility vehicles in Bohol, which upon verification with the Land Transportation Office turned out to have dubious or highly irregular registration records, he said.

The HPG said it recently dismantled a network of car thieves operating in Manila, Bacolod and Cagayan de Oro, dubbed the “Baktin carnapping network.”

Six months of recovery operations launched by HPG since last year in Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City and Bohol netted 67 stolen motor vehicles, mostly sports utility vehicles, commuter vans and sedans that were shipped South by the syndicate.