TVC E. In DR Congo the local police has said, the go-to destination for car thieves in Uganda is on the rise.
In the last five years since 2011, a total of 474 vehicles have been stolen from Uganda and taken to DR Congo. And only two cars are known to have been taken to Rwanda.
“Out of 474 stolen vehicles, we have more than 100 cars that we are trying to repatriate to Uganda from Congo. Very few stolen vehicles are taken to Rwanda. Since last year, only two stolen vehicles were stolen from here to Rwanda,” Asan Kasingye, the head, Interpol here, said on Thursday.
He said very few car thieves run to Rwanda because it doesn’t have porous border crossing points like Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan.
“It’s only Rwanda where it’s impossible to take stolen vehicles because there is a 99.9 chance you would be detected at the border and arrested. They have extended their high-tech 24/7 and integrated it at all borders,” he said.
He told journalists on July 7 at the Directorate of Interpol, Kololo, that most stolen vehicles are driven into Congo through un-gazetted border crossing points, like Vurra.
In the last five years, he said, over 23 vehicles were stolen from Uganda and taken to Tanzania through Mutukula, which has more than 10 ungazatted border crossing points. He also said the steep rise in car thefts is brought on by the end of the pre-inspection of vehicles that enter the country.
“This is where Interpol used to check the vehicle’s registration number before they could enter the country and find out if the vehicles are stolen or not,” Kasingye said.
“Some people buy stolen vehicles online and register them without checking with Interpol to know if their chassis number and model were tampered with or not. So, in our operation, when we find that the car was stolen, we impound it and return it to the owner.”
Kasingye said some stolen vehicles have been recovered in Uganda and are parked at Interpol headquarters in Kampala. He said most stolen vehicles in Uganda are from United Kingdom, South Africa, Kenya, Japan, Tanzania and South Sudan
The Independent
