The pandemic also held back car thieves at the beginning: in the first months of 2020, with the first restrictions on mobility, car thefts fell. The trend reversed in a short time: compared to the first six months, the second half of 2020 recorded a surge in thefts (+30 percent). From June onwards, the “business” gradually started running again, reaching its peak in the summer months. But the news of these hours is that in the crosshairs of thieves there are more and more SUVs.
In the last six months of last year, sport utilities 41 percent of the total number of vehicles missing were stolen. The regions most targeted by thieves were, in order: Campania, Lazio, Puglia and Lombardy. These are the main trends emerging from the “Stolen Vehicle Recovery 2020” analysis by LoJack, the American company specializing in telematics services and the recovery of stolen vehicles.
The ranking of the most stolen SUVs? Here she is. In first place the Fiat 500X, followed on the podium, in order, by the Toyota Rav4 and the Jeep Renegade. Following: Toyota CHR, Peugeot 3008, Ford Kuga, Volkswagen Tiguan, Range Rover Evoque, Volkswagen T-Roc and finally Range Rover Sport.
The aims of the thieves, moreover, are consistent with the market trend: the growing demand on the legal market (between crossover and off-road vehicles, last year, the share of this supersegment exceeded 45 percent of registrations), corresponds to a similar interest in the illegal market. It is the same iron law of supply and demand that makes the Fiat Panda, at the same time, the best-selling and most stolen car in Italy.
Among the lesser circulation of vehicles and the stringent controls of the Police, at the beginning the lockdown, as we have said, also kept the thieves at home. In March 2020, the decline in thefts was 56 percent. In April it was even in 1987. But already in May the “loss” was more contained (-39 per cent), indicating that the “business” was reorganizing. The confirmation came in June: according to the LoJack Observatory (which has a database of 500 thousand devices installed on cars and motorcycles in Italy), the thieves have gradually regained the lost ground, in some cases exceeding the performance of the years previous years and closing 2020 with an overall decline of just 23%.
Leading the recovery of car thefts it was SUVs: 41 percent of vehicles stolen, compared to 33 in 2019. The pandemic has accentuated the polarization around areas that have been increasingly at risk: 37 percent of thefts were recorded in Campania; in Lazio 24%; in Puglia on the 18th; in Lombardy on 10. In practice, in 2020 nine out of 10 thefts occurred in these four regions.
March 9, 2021 (change March 9, 2021 | 12:25)
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