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Technology Reveals Huge Market In Africa For Stolen Cars

Technology Reveals Huge Market In Africa For Stolen Cars

A state-of-the-art tracking device, activated when a $76,000 Lexus was stolen in London, helped lead law enforcement officials to 28 stolen luxury British cars in Kampala, Uganda, according to a report in DailyMail.

The 28 stolen cars — mainly BMWs, Range Rovers and Audis — were worth $1.5 million, and they’re on their way back to the U.K., DailyMail reported.

All the stolen vehicles had keyless ignition, increasingly the target of organised crime gangs, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned last year. Thieves can bypass security using equipment intended for mechanics and reprogrammed keys to start the cars and drive them  off. Manufacturers try to stay one step ahead by updating software, according to DailyMail.

Luxury cars from the U.K. — where people drive on the left — are in great demand in Uganda, where locals also drive on the left as part of the British colonial legacy.

Other left-hand driving countries in Africa include Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi., Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to DriverAbroad.com.

Stolen in April, the Lexus went on a world tour on its way to Uganda that reads like “Around The World in 80 Days.” From the U.K., it was tracked to Le Havre, France, then shipped across the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal to Oman in the Middle East. From there it was shipped to Mombasa, Kenya before being taken by road in a steel container to Kampala.

A high-tech tracking app allowed police to identify how corrupt officials in both Kenya and Uganda infiltrate the criminal syndicate and understand its operation. A few arrests have been made, DailyMail reports.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Luxury cars worth an estimated 400 million pounds ($608 million) are stolen annually from the U.K. and shipped to East Africa, according to a report in TheIndependent. British police and their East African partners seized stolen U.K. cars worth more than 1 million pounds in Uganda in June alone.

“We began to see an increase in the number of cars being stolen last autumn (2014),” said Paul Stanfield with the U.K.’s National Crime Agency told The Independent.

Many Kenyan and Ugandan buyers are unaware the cars are stolen, the report said. The vehicles are sold with documents that appear to be legal but have been faked or acquired through corrupt government officials.

“I believe we would also find vehicles stolen from the U.K. in Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Sudan, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Asan Kasingye, director for Interpol in Uganda, The Independent reports.

Cars stolen in the U.S. are also showing up in Africa, according to a report in TheInquirer. Police this month arrested and charged three Liberians in Pennsylvania involved in stealing cars from rental companies. Investigators believe the vehicles, worth an estimated $500,000, were about to be shipped to Liberia.

South Africa has extraordinarily high rates of car theft. According to the vehicle security company DataDot, 10 percent — or 1.6 million of the 11 million cars driven on South African roads — are stolen, the RandDailyMail reported. A quarter of them go to African countries and 60 percent are resold locally.