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Luxury car theft continues to go well in Sweden and Eastern European gangs blamed

Monday, 05 August 2013
Criminal gangs behind the thefts of newer upscale cars, worth between half a million Swedish Kronor and more is on the increased in Sweden. This comes when overall, the number of car thefts has declined dramatically. Eastern European gangs have been identified as being behind the increase.

As Sweden continues to gets richer especially as they succeeded to manage the past global depression better, more people have behaved the way people with growing wealth behave - bought cars that are more luxurious. This has also attracted those who want to take these cars for themselves irrespective of how they do it. In most cases it has attracted sophisticated thieves from Eastern Europe, benefiting from free movement to come to Sweden and use their contacts here to steal these upscale cars.
Luxury car theft increase in SwedenImage/Svt one the brands most sought after
Regionally,  car theft has also shifted somewhat from the Stockholm area to southern Sweden. In the last seven months approximately some 280 exclusive cars have been reportedly stolen - 90 more than the same period last year, according to reports on Swedish television. Each car has a high value stretching to many millions.

One of the areas hit last month is Jönköping, here police is investigating five cases of such theft. These cars are worth between Skr500 000 to Skr1.2 million, of model year 2010 and newer.
Overall car theft has generally declined sharply over the last ten years, but the thieves have just changed their strategy and are focusing on newer upscale cars worth between half a million and more than a million Swedish Krona. This has actually increased in Sweden.

The first half of 2012, about 190 cars were stolen in this category. In the same period this year about 280 cars were stolen, an increase of nearly 50 percent.
According to the Swedish organized gangs from Eastern Europe are behind the theft which is later easy for them to be sold outside the EU.
"We know that after the cars are stolen, they leave the country within a couple of hours," Lars Öjelind of the National Criminal Police, Sweden said to Swedish television.

One theory holds that Eastern Europeans (not all!) employed in homes as cleaners, handy people, and various forms of cheap help by the wealthy Swedes might not be as cheap as defined. They get into the wealthy people's homes and transmit information about security and values of health to their specialists accomplices. These accomplices will later on take the job in stealing the cars and sometimes other valuables while the low cheap handy people stand by and watch and would be later be compensated in their home countries.
by Scancomark.com Team     

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