CRIME "INDUSTRY."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 264, 7 November 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

CRIME "INDUSTRY."

BRITAIN'S CAR THIEVES

Special measures are to be taken by police authorities all over Britain to combat motor car stealing, which has now become the biggest crime "industry" in the country.

Every day between 25 and 30 cars • are stolen in London alone. The majority of these are recovered—but after they have been stripped of every detachable and easily transportable object. The number of cases of motor car thefts have increased enormously of late. In some areas of London this form of crime is more than double in amount what it was a year ago. New Police Methods.

It is only rarely that motor cars are stolen outright, owing to the difficulty of changing their identity sufficiently to make a safe sale possible. The most common procedure is for a car that has been left outside a house or in a parking place to be driven to some quiet spot and there rifled.

New methods are now being introduced to outwit the car thief. A system of quick transmission of notifications of thefts to all police stations within a large area has been adopted. Within a short time of a theft being reported to a local station a description of the car is "flashed" to

hundreds of centres, and officers at once keep a sharp look-out for the wanted vehicle.

In cases where it is suspected that a car has been stolen by smash-and-grab raiders or for some other criminal purpose the fast pursuit cars are called out immediately.