The art of carjacking

Carjackers’ gangs skillful and professional, use modern techniques to break the anti-car theft gadgets.

ISLAMABAD: ‘It is much more than just irritating’ was the reaction of a visibly irritated Tahir Khalil on an inquiry pertaining to his missing car.

Khalil lost his Toyota Altis, worth Rs1.5 million, to a carjacker in Blue Area of the Capital city a few days ago. He had lodged a complaint with the police but it was mere consolation and a meager hope.

These cars are stolen by no ordinary carjackers. “The carjackers’ gangs are skillful and professional who use modern techniques to break the anti-car theft gadgets,” Haroon Joyia, the Superintendent of Police, (City) told The Express Tribune.

Most of the stolen cars end up in the troubled tribal areas or the ‘Shohba’ (Kabbari) Bazaar of Peshawar, the capital city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), where they are sold in parts. Islamabad, being close to Peshawar, has always been a favourite hunting ground for the carjackers.

When it comes to car-theft, no yearly statistical comparisons are required to determine the trend. Every year, on an average, more than 400 vehicles are stolen from Islamabad alone, including all big (expensive) and small cars.

Although, the capital police claim that since the establishment of checkpoints in the city, car theft incidents have ‘drastically’ decreased. However, statistics by the police show that over 350 cars have so far been stolen from Islamabad this year.

In an exclusive talk with Express Tribune, a suspected carjacker arrested by the police last week revealed certain startling facts about car theft. “People use different safety gadgets and techniques, but we can break all of them. People use stainless steel locks under the steering-wheel of their cars. But I can break that lock in 10 seconds,” said Hashmatullah Khan, the suspected carjacker.

The car thieves use different modus operandi. “They mostly use a spoon to unlock the car and then take not more than 10 seconds to start the ignition,” Khan said. The car thieves select random targets. They do not put their hands on big cars like Toyota and Honda brands, for the fear of car-trackers.

“All the expensive luxury cars have trackers fitted. They are monitored by their service providers. Despite this, the thieves have invented anti-trackers,” said SP Joyia. “Because the tracking system works on GSM signals, the thieves use jamming devices to break the GSM communication between the car and its control centre,” he added.

They have invented a locally-made jamming device which is fixed through a cable to the cigarette lighter holder of the car and it instantly puts the vehicle off the radar of the tracking centre, said the official. The thieves then easily transport it to their wanted destination.

“Yes, we have come to know of these jamming devices but at least the cars with trackers are less prone to theft,” said Babar Zafar Hayat, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of I-Track, a company which provides car tracking solutions. “And we have also designed anti-jammers for which we charge Rs8,000 extra. These anti-jammer trackers, though expensive, cannot be jammed by the thieves,” he added.

Police say the vehicles owners can foil carjacking bid, by using locks, alarms and trackers.

Lifting a car from Islamabad is as easy as frisking a lolli-pop from a shop without catching the shopkeeper’s eye, said Joyia. “There are so many routes where there are no checkpoints. The routes mostly taken by the carjackers are sector I-10, F-10, F-11, G-9 and F-7 from where access to IJ Principle road is easy. Once you are on IJP Principle road, there is nothing to stop you from fleeing Islamabad unchecked,” the official added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2010.