Stupid Criminals? Not These Guys

smartcrooks links to original article

(Sabah Newspaper, 21 June 2011)

In Istanbul, a gang that made spare keys for the cars they rented and then
put GPS devices in the cars to track and steal them later, has been cracked.
The gang of six people systematically committed car theft by first renting a
car and having copies of the car's key made. The gang placed GPS devices,
which track an object using satellites, in the rented cars and returned them to
the rental company.

Once the car was rented by another person the gang went into action,
ultimately stealing 14 cars by this method. The gang got rid of the stolen cars
by either selling them or cutting them up. The cars they sold still contained
the GPS device though, so they stole the same car again from the purchaser.
Then they sold these cars once more.

Officials from the Istanbul Police Car Theft Bureau tracked the gang by
technical means for two months and conducted simultaneous raids in Istanbul
and Şanlıurfa, taking eight people into custody. Hasan Hüseyin Erten (29),
Kemal Dündar (29), Murat Özen (29), Hayri Güzeloğlu (30), Yusuf Yiğit
(43) and Halil Çiftci (49) were sent to the Ümraniye Jail after their processing
was completed at the police station. Two people about whom no criminal
findings were uncovered were released. As the result of the operation, 13
stolen vehicles, one pair of stolen license plates, quite a lot of car parts taken
from the stolen vehicles and one Ecstacy pill were seized. There were 16
total car theft incidents that were the subject of the police operation.