US Customs Agents Intercept Contraband Cars Headed Overseas

SPARROWS POINT, MARYLAND — Most Americans and visitors to the United States encounter Customs and Border Protection agents when they enter or return to the country at land crossings or airports. But CBP also is responsible for inspecting goods leaving the country, which creates a nearly impossible assignment of trying to intercept all stolen automobiles being shipped out of the U.S.

At the Port of Baltimore, CBP scrutinizes several hundred vehicles every day, and on average will find one illegal export — nearly all headed to a particular region of the world, says Adam Rottman, CBP’s director at the Port of Baltimore. He acknowledges that CBP has neither the time nor manpower to inspect every shipping container.

“I’d say 90 to 95% of every one of our stolen automobiles is headed to West Africa,” he tells VOA.

Alex Piquero, a professor of criminology at the University of Miami, said, “There are people who are stealing cars and car parts to sell them very quickly in the local markets. And then there are people literally stealing cars and putting them on containers and selling them, shipping them all over the world, not just to Africa, but also to the Middle East and to Asia.”

On any given day at the Port of Baltimore, CBP’s manifest of seized vehicles resembles the inventory of a small used car lot: a Kia purchased fraudulently at auction in New Jersey is bound for Ghana; a Mercedes-Benz valued at $48,000, purchased with a stolen identity in Ohio, is slated for shipment to Togo; a $75,000 Ford Raptor inside a container with one or two additional stolen vehicles and boxes of new power tools is headed for West Africa.

Rottman peeks inside one container for which no vehicles are listed.

“It’s supposed to be only household goods in there,” he says. “In this example, there’s at least three, probably four cars in that container.”

Rottman walks to another container opened for inspection.

“This container, we just opened today. The vehicle on the top there, that Honda, we’ve already verified through the VIN (vehicle identification number) that the car is stolen. There’s two [vehicles], more in the back,” he says.

CBP operates giant mobile X-ray trucks, the VACIS M6500s, which in minutes can scan shipping containers and determine if they should be opened for a closer inspection.

A growing problem

Auto theft is a problem accelerating across the United States. While the early part of the 2010s saw a decline in vehicle thefts, there has been a notable increase since 2020, influenced by factors that include the coronavirus pandemic and social media videos demonstrating how certain car models can easily be stolen.

The criminals frequently rent cars for a 30-day period and immediately drive them into a nearby container and paste a fake VIN over the real one. The car will not be reported stolen by the rental agency for a month. By then, it may already be on a ship.

Rottman stands in front of the container that has the expensive Ford Raptor inside.

“They’ll take the VIN number on the dashboard on your windshield. They’ll make a fake VIN. They’ll put it over the top, glue it on, so it would come up [on computer databases] clean, or it’s not on file when we look it up,” he explains. “But right away, we noticed the checked digit on the VIN doesn’t match what’s supposed to be on a Ford truck.”

For some buyers in Africa or on other continents, unwittingly acquiring a car stolen in the U.S. may seem like a good deal, but some of the vehicles are known to have been in accidents and could be unsafe, including airbags that no longer work.

“You could be putting your family members in danger by driving some of these stolen cars,” says Rottman.

There is also a moral hazard.

“When they purchase a car like this that’s been stolen, they’re funding these transnational criminal organizations. And criminal organizations are willing to do anything to make money,” Rottman says, noting that such activities by car theft gangs include human trafficking, drug smuggling and even terrorism.

Authorities in some African countries are working with Interpol and other transnational law enforcement agencies to seize some of the stolen vehicles that slip through American ports.

Cooperation is not consistent because of government corruption in some countries.

“Some governments will play nicer, and other governments won’t, and you can’t search every container. And that’s why the security at the port is so critically important,” Piquero of the University of Miami told VOA.

With so many buyers seeking a deal on a used car — often with no questions asked — there is unlikely to be a slowdown anytime soon in the global traffic of stolen vehicles.