Your car may have a clone.
“A vehicle identification number [VIN] is like a fingerprint for the car,” said Frank Scafidi, spokesman for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which identifies insurance criminals. “A VIN is issued to a car when it?s born and should go to the grave with the car when it?s scrapped, but that?s not happening.”
As car manufacturers increase security with tools such as electronic keys, professional auto thieves are one step ahead ?swiping a car?s identity without even opening the door, said Joe Asplen, manager of the Special Investigations Unit for the Maryland Anti Car Theft Authority.
“Identity theft has become a way of stealing a car, especially the high-end later model vehicles,” he said. “Thieves do it for financial motive or to support some other criminal activity. The VIN is right there on the dash.”
How thieves succeed
Car thieves begin by combing a car dealership or lot and copying the VIN off a new car. The number is an algorithm that identifies the car and corresponds with its paperwork, which is required to sell it.
The thief then steals an identical car and replaces its VIN number with the copied number.
Now the stolen car can be registered with the valid VIN number, and the thief can get legitimate paperwork.
Once a thief has legitimate paperwork, it?s easy to resell the stolen car for profit.
Because states don?t share title histories, thieves can sell a VIN cloned car in another state, and it won?t show if another car is registered under that VIN somewhere else, Scafidi said.
The same tactic can be used with car parts taken from a new model vehicle that has been scrapped because of an accident, Asplen said.
Someone can purchase a salvaged car part and use the VIN for another car and get a title, he said.
System with a past
The VIN system used today was created in the 1980s and is based on algorithms, so law enforcement is notified if a single number in the sequence is altered, said Maj. Greg Terp, a Miami police officer, who works with the Maryland Auto Theft Authority to prevent stolen cars from being transported out of Baltimore City ports.
Before 1981, a VIN had been random numbers and thieves could change one number to get a new identity, which then could be registered.
“But [thieves now] also need a cloned VIN for the stolen car to support criminal activity, like shipping the car out of the country, or else police can identify it as stolen vehicle,” Terp said.
No track record
County and state police do not track VIN cloning specifically because it?s included in a broad “auto theft” category.
“It?s done primarily by professional car thieves,” said Officer Hal Dalton, Annapolis police spokesman. “Down here we mostly have joy riders who steal a car for a bit then dump it.”
Howard County police are hosting a VIN etching event for car parts to assist in returning stolen vehicles to the rightful owner, but VIN cloning has not been identified as a problem in the county, police spokesman Sherry Llewellyn said.
Incidents increasing
The number of VIN cloning incidents in the United States has been on the rise since 2001 and accounts for more than $36 million in fraudulent vehicle transactions, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Terp said VIN cloning has become a Homeland security
issue, because VIN cloned cars are used to smuggle drugs, undocumented aliens and weapons.
Cloned VIN cars may be shipped out of the country to be used as car bombs in terrorist activity.
“This is a business, and they?re going to steal cars based on what people want and where their market is,” Terp said. “And it?s a global market.”
