by Rick Lowe
Most of the newspapers of Monday, January 29, 2007 ran stories about a stolen car racket being busted, with one man being arrested in a joint operation between the Central Detective Unit (CDU) here in Nassau and the police in North Andros.
While congratulations are certainly in order, hundreds of vehicles have gone missing here on New Providence (Nassau) each year for what seems more than a decade now at a cost of millions of dollars in insurance pay outs. Not to mention the loss of time and inconvenience to those people that have lost their car or truck.
A brief conversation with any insurer will raise your hair (or at least your eyebrows) over the economic cost of stolen vehicles in our little country.
This blogger has first hand knowledge of recommendations from the Bahamas Motor Dealers Association (BMDA) and the Bahamas General Insurance Association (BGIA) that the Police, or another appropriate agency, should be required to view the vehicle cargo on each mail boat before they leave New Providence for the Family Islands.
Thinking out loud, (yes I know that's dangerous for me to be doing) how could a stolen vehicle obtain insurance for use on the roads of Andros or any other island? Surely the registration numbers would show up as a stolen vehicle?
The Police have indicated eleswhere that over 1,000 vehicles were stolen during 2006 and some forty (40) vehicles were recovered on the island of Andros. One shudders to think how many will be recovered throughout the islands.
And with some additional reporting requirements of all the vehicles shipped on mail boats to the islands, the stolen car racket(s) just might be out of business in the not too distant future.
So congratulations to the Police, but please don't rest on your laurels.
