Motor vehicle theft

Motor vehicle theft or car theft (also known as a grand theft auto in the United States) is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a motor vehicle.
In 2020, there were 810,400 vehicles reported stolen in the United States, up from 724,872 in 2019. Property losses due to motor vehicle theft in 2020 were estimated at $7.4 billion. There were 505,100 car thefts in the European Union (EU) in 2019, a 43% decrease from 2008.
Some methods used by criminals to steal motor vehicles:
The makes and models of vehicles most frequently stolen vary by several factors, including region and ease of theft. In particular, the security systems in older vehicles may not be up to the same standard as current vehicles, and thieves also have longer to learn their weaknesses. Scrap metal and spare part prices may also influence thieves to prefer older vehicles.
In Bangkok, Thailand, the most frequently stolen vehicles are Toyota cars, Toyota Hilux and Isuzu D-Max pickups.
In Malaysia, Proton models are the most frequently stolen vehicles, with the Proton Wira being the highest, followed by the Proton Waja and the Proton Perdana.
In Indonesia, locally-produced MPVs such as Toyota Avanza, Daihatsu Xenia and Suzuki Ertiga are the most commonly stolen vehicles.
In the United Kingdom, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class was the most stolen car in 2018, followed by the BMW X5. Police said the growing number of vehicles featuring keyless entry technology was a contributing factor to a rising number of stolen vehicles.
In the United States and Australia, a design flaw allowing USB cables to substitute for car keys led to sharp increases in the thefts of affected Kia and Hyundai vehicles in 2022. The Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger are listed as the most stolen vehicles in the United States, especially those equipped with the Hellcat engine.
In 2024, LAPD accounts over a 1,000 percent increase of Chevy Camaro thefts.
There are various methods of prevention to reduce the likelihood of a vehicle getting stolen. These include physical barriers, which make the effort of stealing the vehicle more difficult. Some of these include:
Recovery rates for stolen vehicles vary, depending on the effort a jurisdiction's police department puts into recovery, and devices a vehicle has installed to assist in the process.
Police departments use various methods of recovering stolen vehicles, such as random checks of vehicles that come in front of a patrol unit, checks of all vehicles parked along a street or within a parking lot using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) or keeping a watchlist of all the vehicles reported stolen by their owners. Police departments also receive tips on the location of stolen vehicles through StolenCar.com or isitnicked.com in the United Kingdom.
In the UK, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) provides vehicle registration information to certain companies for consumer protection and anti-fraud purposes. This information can be supplemented by details from the police, finance, and insurance companies. Companies that utilize this data include Carfax in the US, AutoCheck, CarCheck, and Check Car Details in the UK, Gapless in Germany, and Cartell in Ireland. These companies provide online car check services for the public and motor trade, with VinCheckFree offering services worldwide.
Vehicle tracking systems, such as LoJack, automatic vehicle location, or OnStar, may enable the location of the vehicle to be tracked by local law enforcement or a private company. Other security devices such as microdot identification allow individual parts of a vehicle to also be identified and potentially returned.
Criminologist Frank E. Hagan wrote that, "Probably the most important factor in the rate of motor vehicle theft is the number of motor vehicles per capita in the country." Using data supplied by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, New Zealand had the highest auto-theft rate for any fairly large country in the world, at 954.0 per 100,000 residents in 2020. Some cities have higher rates, such as Richmond, California, which had an auto-theft rate of 1,518.3 in 2018. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime notes "that when using the figures, any cross-national comparisons should be conducted with caution because of the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offenses in countries, or the different methods of offense counting and recording". Crime rates in certain neighborhoods or areas in each country may also be higher or lower than the nationwide rate. Furthermore, because the vehicle theft rates shown in the table below are "per 100,000 population"—not per 100,000 vehicles—countries with low vehicle ownership rates will appear to have lower theft rates even if the theft rate per vehicle is relatively high.
According to Europol, in 2023, motor vehicle crime networks were the most active in Germany, Poland, Portugal and Serbia, with Serbia being the country where most stolen vehicles are stored and cloned before being shipped and sold.
The FBI reported that the cities where most motor vehicles thefts took place in 2019 were Los Angeles, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Detroit.