Theft-prevention funding swept for Strike Force

Lawmakers siphoned millions of dollars from a little-known vehicle-theft-prevention group funded entirely by your car-insurance premiums to start Arizona’s drug-focused Border Strike Force.

Beginning late in 2016, elected officials after negotiations with Gov. Doug Ducey’s office took $3 million from the unspent dollars in the Arizona Automobile Theft Authority fund and used the money to start Ducey’s law-en--

forcement initiative aimed at interdicting drugs coming from Mexico.

Shifting the money came on the heels of a steep drop in annual Arizona vehicle thefts.

But that decline has since reversed, with the number of cars stolen in Arizona climbing 14 percent statewide in 2017 compared with 2015, according to federal data.

Surplus money, which the auto-theft group took in but was barred from spending, was part of an $18 million effort — largely from the state’s General Fund — to start the Strike Force. The Strike Force has been a key talking point in Gov. Doug Ducey’s re-election campaign, though neither his office nor the Arizona Department of Public Safety have provided specific details about how it operates.

The move left the already cash-restricted auto-theft group with a meager amount of money at the end of the next year. Its leaders, frustrated about a longstanding cap on how much of their money they could spend, then warned about a looming financial “crisis” that stood to undo decades of progress in combating vehicle theft.

Fred Zumbo, executive director of the Arizona Automobile Theft Authority, said taking money from the AATA to create the Strike Force exacerbated the existing frustration about the Legislature’s limits on spending.

Combined, it has stunted the group’s ability to create new theft-prevention efforts.

“It’s just a real inefficient way to do business,” Zumbo said.

Most state services are paid for with taxpayer dollars allocated from the General Fund.

But the Arizona Automobile Theft Authority is funded by a $1 annual surcharge on private individual auto-insurance policies.

When Arizona lawmakers in 1992 created the AATA, they tasked it with determining “the scope of the problem of motor vehicle theft” and finding ways to curtail the issue. It is comprised of police chiefs, sheriffs, county attorneys, insurance employees and someone from the state departments of transportation and public safety.

It takes in roughly $5 million annually from Arizonans’ insurance premiums. The group paid for public-outreach programs, law-enforcement operations and assisted with criminal prosecutions. Even during the Great Recession a decade ago, the group remained financially stable while other state agencies faced budget slashing.

Since 2013, the group has funded more than 40 positions within the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Glendale police, Tucson police and prosecutors or support staff in Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties, among others, according to annual reports.

The largest recipient of money from the AATA is the DPS, which has received $3,650,000 annually to fund its own Vehicle Theft Task Force. In the past, the DPS group has consisted of at least 15 sworn personnel, mostly detectives, and worked cases across the state — including in border counties.

Zumbo joined the AATA in 2014 after retiring from a career at the DPS. He said some of the work is undercover, busting so-called chop shops that dismantle stolen cars for profit. The task force also busts up crime rings, some of them transnational groups trafficking stolen vehicles.

The DPS task force has long had success taking down vehicle theft operations.

In a 2015 case dubbed “Operation Chewbaca,” DPS detectives helped seize a stolen dump truck, trailers and equipment valued at nearly $400,000. Prosecutors filed dozens of charges against the ringleader, whose last name — Baca — generated the name.

“While the VTTF is combating vehicle theft, they are also having a significant impact on the overall crime problem facing our state,” said DPS spokesman Bart Graves. “... The mission of the VTTF has not changed for decades. What has changed are the trends, tactics and technology that are utilized by both the criminals committing vehicle theft and the law enforcement officers trying to stop them.”

But perhaps more publicly celebrated than organized theft task forces were “bait car” programs embraced in the early 2000s by police and sheriffs.

Departments statewide used AATA dollars and donated vehicles to cover costs of the programs, where police planted vulnerable vehicles in highcrime areas, like malls or auto-theftprone neighborhoods. Thieves took the bait while detectives tracked and eventually nabbed them, sometimes uncovering larger criminal enterprises along the way.

The Arizona bait-car programs have led to more than 500 arrests since the effort was piloted in 2003. The programs are widely credited with driving the auto-theft rate down to its lowest level in decades, according to AATA annual reports.

Local police praised the AATA’s efforts for the drastic downturn, their comments routinely splashed across local news outlets.

“Scottsdale makes first arrests with auto theft bait,” one headline read in March 2003.

“Bait cars reel in thieves,” another declared in 2004.

TV stations regularly aired police videos of the auto thieves being caught in the act.

“People really enjoy seeing these guys go to jail. They get to watch a crime in progress,” then-Phoenix police Sgt. Don Schukei told The Arizona Republic in 2004. “We are starting to get lots of calls from people saying, ‘We have an auto theft problem in my apartment complex, neighborhood, church parking lot . ... Please bring your car here.’”

Long renowned in the AATA’s annual year-in-review documents, the bait car program’s success was mentioned just one time in the 2017 report — after the money was shoveled toward the creation of the Border Strike Force.

Meanwhile, fanfare surrounding bait-car programs has faded.

The Scottsdale Police Department self-funds its bait car program. Other departments across the Valley have significantly reduced the use of bait cars, in part because of shifts in theft tactics and a greater focus on organized crime, rather than individual thieves.

Glendale police, which at one time benefited from the AATA’s bait car grants, has seen its work with the group fall to the wayside. Like many departments, they sometimes get information from the group about trends or opportunities. But they haven’t received money or other funding in years, said Glendale police Sgt. John Roth.

“In the future, we can see ourselves working more closely with them in new ways and foresee nothing but support and teamwork,” he said. “We find the alliance, overall, a success.”

Vehicle theft has long been among the most costly forms of property crime, accounting for a nearly $6 billion loss nationwide in 2017, federal crime data show.

For nearly 20 years, it was an epidemic.

The rate of motor-vehicle thefts surged in Arizona in the late 1980s, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. In 1995, as the Arizona Automobile Theft Authority was revving up, the state hit its all-time record high for the number of thefts — 48,830 — and rate of thefts — 1,158 per 100,000 people.

The number of thefts plateaued in the early 2000s before plummeting in the latter part of the decade.

By 2015, Arizona saw its lowest number and rate of vehicle thefts since 1988.

While it’s impossible to say precisely how much of the decline could be traced to the AATA and how much was due to other shifts in technology and crime, Zumbo was quick to claim some of the credit.

“Although auto theft rates have declined significantly the past two decades, it has NOT been eradicated,” Zumbo wrote in a letter to Ducey the year after the money was scraped from its budget. “... Resources, technology and support are needed more than ever to stay current on crime trends.”

Though Phoenix and Arizona no longer led the country in car thefts, cities in neighboring New Mexico and California still topped the list — a problem that could again bleed across state lines, officials warn.

Zumbo said he is already seeing a rise in thefts of cars used by apps like Turo, which allows people to rent their cars out to strangers, similar to AirBnB for homes. He also said there’s a rise in thefts from vehicles, with criminals smashing windows and taking what they can find.

Because a car is increasingly a “computer on wheels,” thieves have found the technology and components more valuable than the car itself, said Roger Morris, spokesman for the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

Some law-enforcement agencies and public officials reduced auto-theft prevention efforts and halted bait-car programs when rates plummeted. With a national uptick in the past few years, cities like Albuquerque — a national hotspot for vehicle thefts — are again investing in bait-car programs.

“It just goes to show,” Morris said, “that when you take things for granted somewhat, it can come back to bite you.”

Last year — the first since the $3 million shift to the Border Strike Force — the number and rate of vehicle thefts reversed its downward trend in Arizona.

In addition to money being swiped for the Border Strike Force, another monetary woe was plaguing the AATA in 2017, which marked the program’s 25th anniversary and the halving of vehicle thefts compared with a decade earlier.

The otherwise financially healthy group had cash in its reach. But an appropriation cap that limits the department’s spending to $5,295,500 annually meant that a $1 million-and-growing insurance-financed surplus sat unused each year.