50 Percent Phone Calls to Police Pertain to Car Thefts

Author: 
Staff Writer
Publication Date: 
Tue, 2004-10-19 03:00

JEDDAH, 19 October 2004 — Car thefts account for an estimated 50 percent of all calls received by police, Al-Watan reported quoting a security source. Taxis make up a bulk of the theft cases.

A taxi was stolen in Al-Ruwais neighborhood on the day two recent bombings occurred in Jeddah. Two unknown criminals jumped into the taxi and threatened the driver they would harm him if he did not give them all the money he had and then they took off with the car. Another taxi was also stolen south of Jeddah the same day and it was dismantled and sold in the black market.

Muhsin Ramadan, who works in a taxi company, said that two cars of his company were stolen. One of them was stolen in Al-Safa neighborhood when a passenger took it to a spot where three people were waiting. They pulled out a weapon and threatened to harm the driver if he did not give up the car and his money. Police later recognized the dismantled vehicle from its parts. Another car was stolen last week behind King Saud Mosque in the same circumstances.

“Every day we experience car thefts. The motives are different. If car lifters break up the car and sell its parts in the black market, teenagers steal the car for joyriding. Most of the time police find the car broken up and in a bad shape,” Muhammad Hadi, president of Bin Hadi Limousine Compan, told Al-Watan.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour Al-Turki said there is no clear statistics on how many cars are stolen.

He said the problem should be addressed and an early solution found before it got out of hand. He said motives to steal cars varied and that all car thefts these days were not linked to terrorism but to individual crimes.

Main category: 
Old Categories: