In France, a police crackdown led to the arrest of 13 suspects linked to an organized criminal group who stole and transported SUVs, expensive sports vehicles that are a cross between minivans and 4×4.
1 min
After two years of investigation involving six European countries, Interpol and Europol, the police got their hands on this criminal group specializing in SUV theft.
Of French, Gambian and Senegalese nationality, the thugs are said to have stolen and transported more than 170 vehicles, with a well-established operating procedure, as explained by Guillaume Maniglier, deputy head of the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime, on Pierre’s microphone. Olivier from RFI. “ French ports such as Le Havre in particular were used. Sometimes the vehicles arrived at the port already containerized; other vehicles were transported to Belgium and Germany, where they were stored and placed in containers, then left for West Africa. »
Three containers, which transported a total of nine stolen cars, were intercepted at the ports of Le Havre and Las Palmas, in Spain. It was by cross-checking the routes taken by the thieves that the police in these different countries were able to trace the suspects back to them.
In 2022, nearly 280,000 vehicles worldwide have been identified as stolen by Interpol