Number of car thefts down significantly in 2018

According to this 16 disappeared.613 cars permanently registered, a drop of almost 13 percent compared to the previous year. The drop in the number of trucks is even more pronounced – by 22.6 percent to 921 vehicles.

According to the BKA, the german manufacturers VW, BMW, audi and mercedes continue to be particularly popular with car thieves. More than 56 percent of the cars put on the wanted list that disappeared permanently had these marks. Vehicles from the four manufacturers account for around 45 percent of total registrations.

Contrary to the general downward trend, more small vans were stolen, such as fiat ducato, ford transit or mercedes sprinter, the BKA situation report says. Thefts of mercedes sprinters (type 906) alone increased by around 22 percent year-on-year in 2018.

There is a high demand for stolen vehicles in southeastern and eastern europe as well as in the middle east. "International motor vehicle theft continues to be dominated by highly skilled, specialized groups of offenders, most of whom operate on the basis of a division of labor," the report states. If a car had a SIM card and could theoretically be tracked, thieves often leveraged that capability with special technology.