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Car theft syndicates warm up to Tanzania
Some of the vehicles that were stolen in Mbarara District in June. Photos/ Benson Tumusiime
What you need to know:
- The police’s half-year statistics indicate that car theft syndicates are increasingly moving away from Kampala metropolitan areas to south western Uganda.
The porous border between Uganda and Tanzania in Mutukula has made the south west Uganda’s worst place for car theft.
The police’s half-year statistics indicate that car theft syndicates are increasingly moving away from Kampala metropolitan areas to south western Uganda.
“We are now investigating 21 cases of stolen motor vehicles and one car case of aggravated robbery in the last six months,” Mr Samson Kasasira, the police spokesperson for the Rwizi region, told Saturday Monitor.
Some of the districts where drivers face the highest risk of car theft include; Mbarara, Kiruhura, Bushenyi, and Isingiro.
The latest police crime report shows that 880 cases of motor vehicle thefts were reported in 2020 compared to 1,147 in 2019. The 23.2 percent decrease was largely attributed to pandemic curbs that included, among others, a dusk-to-dawn curfew. The statistics further show that only 291 of the 880 motor vehicles reported stolen were recovered.
Since the full reopening of the economy early this year, cases of stolen cars have started spiking. Anecdotal evidence shows that night-time is when the car theft syndicates often spring into action. A case in point is that of Mr Ssuna Shabira whose vehicle, registration number UAZ 095Q, was stolen from the parking yard at night in Rutooma, Mbarara District.
The police commenced investigations after Mr Shabira filed a case at Bwizibwera Police Station within hours of the theft. With the aid of CCTV footage of Kabwohe Police Station, the police established that the vehicle was headed to Bushenyi District. The limited coverage of the CCTV cameras, however, didn’t give them much to work with.
“We then used the motor vehicle tracking device and the track record showed it in Tanzania. I used the Police Flying Squad of Mbarara Police Station,” Mr Shabira said, adding that he “we went up to Chaka District in Tanzania where we managed to find the vehicle, but the thugs had changed its colour, engine number, chassis number, and the number plate from Uganda’s registration to the registration of Tanzania.”
Meticulous approach
Saturday Monitor has established that the car theft syndicates are meticulously organised. They have agents in different places such as petrol stations and parking yards. The aforesaid agents feed the syndicates with vital pieces of information such as the duration a car has been parked in a given place.
Mr Deo Natukunda had, for instance, parked his car at Kobil Petrol Station in Bushenyi District.
“My vehicle, Isuzu Forward registration number UBF 837X, was stolen from Bushenyi and I reported to Bushenyi Central Police Station where some suspects were arrested and later released on police bond,” the businessman from Mbarara Town told Saturday Monitor.
Mr Natukunda’s vehicle—along with another white Forward (UAY122Q) stolen from Rukungiri District and white Fuso (UAX997W) pinched from Mbarara District—are still missing. Mr Kasasira also revealed other outstanding cases in Kageti area (two), Lyantonde (three), Rutooma (two), Nyarushanje (one), Bushenyi (one), Kabwohe (one), and Rukungiri (three).
Mr Kasasira told Saturday Monitor that quickly filing a case with the police can prove to be helpful. He cited the case of Mr Deus Byamugisha whose Fuso Fighter registration number UAX 260G was stolen from his abode in Nyarushanje Ngarama Cell, Rukungiri District.
“Through our intelligence and CCTV cameras, the motor vehicle was tracked right from Rukungiri and later intercepted in Mbarara City headed to Greater Masaka Region,” Mr Kasasira revealed, adding, “During the pursuit of the assailants, their Toyota Townace, registration number UAR 611R, got involved in an accident, injuring the occupant (Issa Matovu) who was trying to flee… he is admitted to Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, nursing injuries.”
Mr Kasasira further said some stolen cars are still in Tanzania despite having been flagged as stolen from Uganda. He adds that they are waiting for “authorities of Tanzania” to hand them over.
Efficacy of technology
Mr Henry Amanya, the chief executive officer of Accurate Tracking Systems, advises car owners to subscribe to basic tracking for individual vehicles, fleet monitoring systems for company vehicles, and use of roaming data systems so as to starve off efforts of the car theft syndicates.
“You can use a Sim card and insert it into the tracking device, which goes in the vehicle,” he said, adding that this can enable a stolen car within or outside Uganda to be “easily track[ed] and [returned].”
While the government of Uganda has put in place different mechanisms to address the spike in car thefts, the police have been presented with more difficulties. This has majorly been down to the poor coverage of CCTV cameras; once hailed as a silver bullet solution to such crimes.
In 2018, the government took out a loan worth $104m (Shs364b) from Standard Chartered Bank to support the National CCTV Network Expansion Project. By 2019, 2,547 cameras were installed out of 3233. The camera sites installed are 1038 out of 1248. But the cameras online are only 1565 out of 3233.
The purpose of the CCTV cameras is to monitor the public places where they are installed while assisting in detection and prevention of crime. However, a credible source within the security circles told this newspaper that the visibility of some cameras that were installed on highways and in cities is gravely compromised.
