A regional view of the car-theft enterprises. All are prime targets in a niche market ready to strip, flip or ship one of your most valuable possessions. Your car could be stripped on the street, or peeled down to its frame inside a chop shop. It could be bubble-wrapped inside a shipping container and sent overseas. Petty thieves hunt for accessories.
Specialists steal air bags to order.
A scrap dealer fronts an operation shipping luxury cars to Asia. Like a slaughterhouse that uses everything but the pig's squeal, not a piece is wasted. When these butchers of chrome and steel are through, all that's left of your car is the greasy spot beneath it. While auto thefts have declined 17 percent nationally since 1992, and 9 percent in the seven counties surrounding Philadelphia, inside the city they are up 8 percent. Yet while the auto-theft problem is acute in the city, suburbia is hardly immune.