BALTIMORE — Whether it was stolen off the street, or leased with fake identification, a lot of Baltimore's stolen cars wind up here, in a warehouse operated by the Port of Baltimore.
Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a dozen stolen vehicles here. Most were headed for West Africa.
Area port director Adam Rottman says Baltimore is one of the few ports on the eastern seaboard that ships there.
"You'll see some of the cars are kinda junk cars. What they do there is they break them apart and eventually build brand new cars out of those parts. And then your high-end automobiles, those are going to the more affluent folks who live out in West Africa," Rottman said.
At first glance, this appears to be a container filled with household goods. But upon closer inspection, you can see the bumper of a vehicle. And there's likely multiple vehicles inside this container.
Port workers will use a massive X-Ray machine to identify those hidden cars.
Believe it or not, that’s a car hidden in this shipping container. Using an X-Ray machine, port workers will likely identify several hidden vehicles in there. How Customs & Border Protection is cracking down on international stolen vehicle operations..tonight at 5&6 @WMAR2News pic.twitter.com/PKmefzwlrP
— Elizabeth Worthington (@ElizWorthNews) September 1, 2023
"They'll generally try to shove four cars into these containers. As you can see, you've got two on the bottom here and you've got two chained up. This is typical of what you'll see on a stolen car. Because when you see a legitimate shipment coming through, a really nice car from a legit person, this would be packed a lot better. You wouldn't have cars sitting on top of other cars, hanging up by chains," Rottman said.
The X-Ray machine is the most high-tech tool the port has in its arsenal, but workers also utilize a good ol' fashioned flagging system, where they identify previous violators, and track patterns.
They also always check for fraudulent titles, but they can't catch them all.
"I get that question all the time - what do we think we're missing?," Rottman said. "I'm gonna tell you this. We've had several instances where we get a phone call from one of our stakeholders, meaning our law enforcement agencies, state or local, and they say, 'hey we're looking for a specific car.' almost every time we get the phone call, we've gotten that car."
So far this year, CPB officers in the Baltimore Field Office have intercepted 256 stolen vehicles. That's already higher than last year's total of 239 vehicles.
Rottman says that's likely due to a combo of increased car thefts, and customs officers getting better at catching them. The Baltimore Field Office covers an area from Trenton, N.J., to the Virginia – North Carolina state line, and includes New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
"Our investigative arm is homeland security investigations. And we've seen indictment after indictment after indictment of these transnational criminal organizations, and we are definitely putting a dent in their operations," Rottman said.
"When your car is stolen, it's an emotional experience. You feel violated, you feel scared, you feel like something's not right in the world. And I think a story like this, what we're doing here, really makes a difference to people, saying, listen, there are good guys out there trying to stop these organizations," Rottman said.
