“Lithuanians account for around two-thirds of such crimes,” Ville Paloheimo, superintendent at the Department of National Operations, said at a news conference.
Swedish and Lithuanian officers have been cooperating for two years now. Lithuanian officers are informed about special marking solutions that help trace stolen vehicle parts.
According to Leif Svensson, BMW security manager at Safesolution SmartDNA, all new cars are currently marked using the Smart DNA technology.
“We suffer huge losses due to these thefts. In 2016 alone, around 3,000 thefts were committed, mostly of navigation systems and wheels. In each such case, repairs cost the owner or the insurance company 15,000-20,000,” he said.
Police in Lithuania’s second-biggest city of Kaunas is currently conducting three pre-trial investigations concerning 160 wheels, airbags and multimedia devices. Seventeen of these were marked.
Seven John Deere tractors were found in the district of Jonava, in the county of Kaunas, last year, which was one of the examples of successful joint investigations by Kaunas police and Swedish officers, Raimondas Baltaduonis, head of the property crimes investigation board at the Kaunas criminal police, said.
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