A record number of stolen cars disappear without a trace

Car crimes are decreasing. Nevertheless, hundreds of stolen cars disappeared without a trace last year, according to the insurance company If.

Now Customs is hoping for new legislation this autumn.

– The situation today is frustrating for the employees, says Martin Petersson, expert at the Swedish Customs Administration.

It is still mainly international leagues that commit car crimes in Sweden, writes If in its annual report on car crimes.

An estimated 90 percent of the stolen goods are taken abroad and a third of the cars that were wanted last year, almost 2,000 cars, have disappeared without a trace. This is the highest figure to date according to the insurance company.

According to Martin Petersson, an expert at the Swedish Customs Administration, one of the problems today is that the authority does not have the authority to actively search for stolen goods in outgoing traffic.

This means that stolen goods can only be discovered as secondary finds when they are looking for, for example, narcotics, weapons or goods covered by the sanctions against Russia.

“Reduce frustration”

Petersson therefore welcomes the government’s plans to criminalize the export of stolen goods.

– It looks like it can be hammered through this autumn, so that we get statutory support to look for stolen goods among the outgoing goods, he says.

– We need more resources to complete that mission. But it is possible to do a little even during the journey. It would reduce employee frustration.

Big costs

According to If, car crime has generally decreased in the last ten years. However, the costs to society have not decreased at the same rate.

The damage costs for all vehicle crime totaled over SEK 1.1 billion last year, according to statistics from the industry organization Swedish Insurance.

“Criminals work more systematically and more goal-oriented. Even if the number of crimes decreases, the cost of the crimes that we insurance companies and our customers have to pay does not decrease,” says Ann Hassel Tano, head of investigations at If, in a press release.