Thread: More proof crossing the border is not a victimless crime

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/191859

Auto thefts maintain steady climb in Tucson
Closeness to Mexican border makes city buck national trend
By Jack Gillum
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.15.2007
advertisementARIVACA — Something didn't jibe with the Lexus left abandoned on the road's shoulder.
Two tires were blown out and dirty, as though they'd traveled a long way down a dirt road. The body had lengthwise scratches, likely from thorns and underbrush. And the license plate was registered to a different car.
As he examined the vehicle, left about 12 miles north of the border on Arivaca Road, Tucson police Sgt. David Azuelo came to an all-too-familiar conclusion: It was likely stolen, another vehicle caught up in an increasing trend of theft and border-related smuggling.
While auto theft has fallen nationwide for four years and dropped statewide, it's continued its steady climb in Tucson and in other cities near the Mexican border. Tucson reported one of the greatest increases in car theft in the most recent round of FBI statistics, jumping by 850 cases from 2005 to 2006.
Those involved say the rise is partly due to the smuggling of people, drugs and guns.
"We're seeing an increase in auto thefts directly related to the border," said Azuelo, a 24-year veteran with the Tucson Police Department who heads a unit within the state's auto-theft task force.
While there are no statistics that show exactly how many cars are taken to Mexico or used in border-related crime, the effects are far-reaching.
The damage to vehicles used in human- and drug-smuggling costs millions of dollars annually. And those costs are fueling a rise in insurance premiums for all drivers.
Auto theft "certainly has an impact, and it's not an insignificant one" on rates, said Erin Klug, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Insurance. "The more premiums insurance companies pay out, the higher the costs for consumers."
Finding stolen cars
About once a month, Azuelo's crew heads out, roaming Southern Arizona and apartment complexes and hotels near Interstate 10 — stolen-vehicle dumping grounds, they say.
Smugglers bring up their loads from the border and abandon the cars here, where their loads are picked up and taken farther into the state.
Finding the cars, they say, sometimes comes down to common sense. After noticing a truck that looked a "little too new" in a West Side apartment complex in late June, Azuelo's team found yet another stolen vehicle, a type of truck frequently used in border-related crimes.
The late-model truck had a broken steering column and its cab was full of trash. When they ran its plate, officers found it had been stolen the week before from a Sierra Vista woman.
The rate of auto thefts has risen in several large cities close to the border, including Tucson, El Paso and San Antonio, according to 2006 data from the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report.
In Tucson, the rate of car thefts was 127 per 10,000 people for 2005. That increased to 142 per 10,000 in 2006.
Interviews with police departments in several smaller cities in Arizona's border counties reveal similar trends. In Yuma, for example, the number of stolen vehicles rose from from 69 per 10,000 in 2005 to 74 per 10,000 the following year.
The Arizona Auto Theft Task Force recovers roughly 3,000 stolen vehicles per year — about $35 million worth. State records show that's a 65 percent recovery rate. Officers make about 330 felony arrests per year, too.
Stolen cars increasingly are being abandoned in Southern Arizona's smaller cities, causing problems for small police departments. In Bisbee, for example, which only had six car thefts in 2006, authorities recovered more than twice that many vehicles.
"We're getting so many that come through here," said Sgt. Taron Maddux of the Bisbee Police Department. A "full-blown investigation," such as towing the vehicle to even proving it was stolen, can take hours for his small department — and tie up resources that it needs for investigating other crimes.
Nogales Police Department Lt. Heriberto Zuniga said that recovering stolen cars "is time-consuming. Every vehicle requires an inspection and tow."
He said he's surprised the vehicle-recovery rate in Nogales isn't rising. But records show it's already high — about 125 vehicles are recovered yearly.
Everyone pays
Ross Cox locked up his 2001 Ford F-250 truck outside an East Side nightclub in May.
Fifteen minutes later, it was gone.
Cox, 44, was relieved when police found his truck the next day, at West Valencia and South Midvale Park roads, about 15 miles away. That feeling faded when he got the full report of the damage:
The steering column, busted. The driver's-side mirror, broken. The windshield, cracked.
And the inside? Ripe with the smell of grime and human sweat.
"It just makes your heart sink," Cox said.
Cox paid about $3,000 to get his truck repaired, the same pickup he bought a year and a half ago for for eight times that amount. The repair costs, of course, didn't include the $1,500 he lost in stolen tools, which were stored in a lock box in his truck bed.
Authorities said Cox's truck is one of the most commonly stolen vehicles these days. That's because heavy-duty trucks are good for off-road use and can store a lot of things — such as people, Azuelo said.
Some owners don't fare as lucky. Carmen Carranza, the manager of 5 Star Collision Center in Tucson, said the stolen cars that her business repairs "are usually pretty trashed."
"We have cars that come in with no seats," she said. "The steering columns are broken, some cars are stripped."
The damage to those vehicles can cost thousands, she said.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the average comprehensive premium for Arizona is about $246, the third-highest in the nation. That figure, for 2004, increased about $63 from 2001, when the state ranked No. 14, the Arizona Daily Star found.
Although the insurance commissioners' report said vehicle-theft rates and auto-repair costs are factors that affect state-to-state insurance premiums, there's no way to determine how much car theft specifically changes rates.
But the numbers speak for themselves. In 2005, Arizona auto-policy holders picked up the tab for the $343 million in car-theft losses, said Ron Williams, the executive director of the Arizona Insurance Information Association
"Cat-and-mouse game"
As auto thefts increase, the number of people solely tasked to go out and find stolen vehicles has remained constant, state budget data show.
In fiscal year 2004, 44 state task-force positions were funded by the auto-theft authority. Only one more position was added in fiscal 2007, according to projected data from Arizona's master list of state government programs.
Nonetheless, prosecutors are still recording a 97 percent conviction rate, the data show.
The auto-theft task force is funded entirely by the Arizona Automobile Theft Authority, said spokeswoman Ann Armstrong. That money comes from a $1 fee in each Arizona driver's insurance premium.
With that money, state police say they do what they can in trying to curb auto thefts — border-related or not.
That includes frequent changes in tactics, such as a new checkpoint set up last week to catch criminal activity heading to and from the border. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Enforcement Security Task Force operation, led by the state Department of Public Safety, was the first such operation close to the Tucson area in about 20 years.
In San Diego, where the auto-theft rate has dropped, some partly credit the overall decrease in crime to tightened border security from Operation Gatekeeper, which began in October 1994 and essentially sealed the border.
Police in Southern Arizona, hoping to see such a drop in auto-related crimes, also credit highway operations, such as last week's checkpoint, for gathering vital intelligence for investigations and stopping stolen vehicles. In two separate days last week, the checkpoint netted 11 felony arrests, according to Sgt. Steve Tritz, who heads the DPS' border security and immigration squad.
But such endeavors can be tricky, especially because criminals do everything they can to stay a step ahead of law enforcement.
"There are guys on top of the mountains right now, telling people to lay low," Azuelo said, pointing to peaks around Arizona 286 where sentries send warnings via radio to those traveling in stolen cars.
"It's just a cat-and-mouse game," he said.
Read the Star's crime blog 'Police Beat' and listen to police scanners at azstarnet.com/crime
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As much as they want to keep saying they're just here to work etc. there are tons of victims for their disrespect of our laws. I read an article in the lastest Good Housekeeping about the problems it's causing with medical records when someone steals your identity. This poor woman had child and family services comming to take her kids away because and illegal went and had a baby that was meth positive and left it at the hospital using that womans ID. I guess there's even reports where in getting a job or insurance they check your medical records and people are comming up with illnesses and treatments on their records that isn't theirs. Lord only knows what shows up on background checks.....it's not a funny game.


I know here we are really getting an increase in stolen cars or syphoned gas or sometimes just bashing windows in for sport.