Posted on 05/13/2002 1:17:45 PM PDT by joan
POZZUOLI, Italy — The sailor parked his car for just 15 minutes.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Thomas Dickenson left it along a busy row of shops, restaurants and bars where he met up with some friends.
But when he returned, his rented subcompact had vanished.
"I’ve been told by Italians, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you parked down there,’" Dickenson says. "I had theft insurance, thank God."
The sailor is just one casualty in a plague devastating the Neapolitan suburbia.
The buzzing hubbub of Pozzuoli makes it painfully apparent that people have the cars to swipe. As many as 30 disappear per day, according to one official.
And several months into an apparent spree throughout the Campi Flegrei area, some residents actually are agreeing to buy cars back from thieves.
So enjoy the jeweled blue of the sea, the Roman amphitheater baking bread-brown under flood lights at night, the smell of seafood by the pier. But take the bus.
Dickenson says he no longer will park in Pozzuoli.
According to a Carabinieri commander named Esposito (he wouldn’t give his first name) the number of cars stolen in Pozzuoli remains steady at three or four per evening.
A senior local government official speaking on condition of anonymity says he knows that at least five people wind up without their wheels each day.
He calls the Carabinieri figures incomplete because the Campi Flegrei area has several competing federal and city police forces. And police admit some victims never file reports.
"They are stealing everything!" the official declares.
Back in the good old days — like last year — thieves seemed to prefer the bulbous Toyota Yaris, the slat-grilled and sexy Alfa Romeo 147 and any BMW or Mercedes-Benz they could get their hot-wiring hands on.
Now, the official notes, thieves have become less picky.
"They even steal cars no one wants," he says. "Like the Twingo."
Yes, even that weirdly named Renault is up for grabs. Part of the problem, the official says, is a lack of city police patrols at night.
Esposito says he knows people are paying to get their cars back, and believes it shows an unfortunate lack of "confidence in the system."
He also admits that some victims make deals with thieves to recover their cars and never file reports.
Leo and Angela Isac, two British missionaries, say that after their car vanished more than a year ago, they received a telephone call. A thief demanded money for the car, but the couple refused, reasoning they didn’t want to encourage such an enterprise. They also refused to cooperate in a Carabinieri sting, as they say police could not guarantee their safety.
At least one American succeeded in tracking down the thieves.
Last month, a retired Navy chief paid $1,200 ransom for the return of her Volkswagen.
She considered it sort of a sick bargain.
"It could have been a lot worse," said Sue Palumbo, who now works for Stars and Stripes’ circulation department. Her 1999 VW Polo contained a telephone bill and her house keys.
"We just called everyone that we knew, including some mechanics and wrecking yards. Apparently somewhere on the list was someone who accepts stolen cars."
The Polo already had a buyer. But for $1,200, that problem could disappear.
"They said they’d deliver it to the exit of our choice."
It was all too familiar. Several years ago, thieves stole a rental truck from in front of Palumbo’s home. Her husband called his own cell phone, which he had left in the truck, to see who answered. The voice on the other end wanted $2,500.
The Palumbos refused. The thief did, however, agree to read a needed entry from an appointment book before hanging up.
"I think people are finding out it’s easier to ransom the cars back to the owner," Palumbo says, resignedly. "They don’t have the risk."
Some missing cars might be torn down into parts. Diagonal Reports Ltd., a market research company, has declared that many of the "remanufactured parts" in Italian circulation actually are dismantled from stolen autos.
A local businessman, speaking on condition of anonymity, says one of his drivers actually toured a camp full of stripped-down cars in search of a missing vehicle.
During a previous crime spree, Naples’ Il Mattino newspaper reported a ring of auto thieves used Bari, Milan and Naples as distribution hubs to transport cars to the Balkans.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Albanian mob has allied with Italy’s crime families. The Council of Europe cites the Naples-area Camorra organization with having forged various smuggling pacts with Balkan counterparts. Romania, too, is considered a center for car trafficking.
Others say the "word on the street," is that thieves in Naples have invaded the car-taking turf of Pozzuoli gangs, provoking a wheel-swiping war. But Esposito says the culprits are just common car thieves, nothing more.
Whatever the cause, Pozzuoli has company.
According to the Council of Europe report, there were 284,296 cars stolen in Italy during 1998, the most recent year listed in the site’s online database. That’s the most thefts reported by any member of the council.
Esposito says the Naples area ranks fourth for the number of cars stolen — behind Milan, Rome and Catania.
The number of Americans who have lost cars in Pozzuoli and environs is unavailable.
According to figures provided by Navy officials in Naples, 33 NATO-plated cars were stolen throughout the Naples region from January through April of this year. During all of last year, 63 disappeared.
However, those numbers don’t include every car driven by NATO personnel, said Senior Chief Petty Officer Slater, base spokesman.
Some car owners are fortunate to get the car back without having to pay.
Willie Williams, an American mechanic married to a Navy chief petty officer, was shocked on a recent Saturday morning to hear his BMW 520i firing up in his driveway.
Williams says that naval security officers spotted the car mounted to a tow truck on its way toward Rome. He was fortunate enough to recover it for free.
After the car’s return, Williams installed a "kill switch" so that no one could start it. Four weeks ago, he awoke to find his BMW had been rolled a couple house-lengths down the street of his Pinetamare neighborhood. Apparently, the thieves couldn’t start it, but tried to push it away anyway.
"If I catch them — Oh, let it be — it’ll be a lot of cryin’," Williams vows. "If I catch them, I will never spare the rod."
Ethnic Albanian refugee arrested at SACEUR’s home in Belgium:
Police arrested an ethnic Albanian refugee early Saturday morning on the grounds just outside the residence of U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Belgian police said in a statement Sunday…“It was determined that his intent was to commit burglary, and that he was an illegal resident of Belgium,” the statement said. He returned to his country on Sunday.
I have no idea what kind of car that is but I think I'd be happy if someone took it off my hands.
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