Stolen 71 Challenger found after almost 30 years

[ChrisS]

"This story is the kind of thing that makes people THINK that an items like a fender tag has some kind of LEGAL signifigance. I can assure you that it does NOT."


New York Law



§ 421. Sale of a motor vehicle, trailer or part thereof with changed
identification number.



1. Any person engaged in the business of buying or selling motor vehicles, trailers, or parts thereof, shall be presumed to have determined and to know the original vehicle identification numbers and special identification numbers on any motor vehicle, trailers or parts thereof purchased or sold by such person, both at the time of purchase and sale.



2. Any person engaged in the business of buying or selling motor
vehicles, trailers, or parts thereof, who sells or offers for sale a
motor vehicle, trailer, or part thereof, the original vehicle
identification number or special identification number of which shall have been destroyed, removed, altered, defaced or so covered as to be effectually concealed, without having complied with regulations promulgated by the commissioner, shall be guilty of a class E felony.



3. Any person, other than a person engaged in the business of buying
or selling motor vehicles, trailers, or parts thereof, who knowingly
sells or offers for sale a motor vehicle, trailer, or part thereof, the
original vehicle identification number or special identification number of which shall have been destroyed, removed, altered, defaced or so covered as to be effectually concealed shall be guilty of a class E felony.



4. For the purposes of this article, the term "original identification number" shall mean any number embossed, engraved, etched, affixed to a label, sticker or plate or similarly marked on any part of a motor vehicle, trailer or vehicle part which is assigned by the manufacturer for the purpose of identification of that particular motor vehicle, trailer or vehicle part and the location of which number is made available to the public.

[Smokey]

I do give Fred one thing. He can throw on one hell of a show on main street. They like their nice high end Mopars, show them, and let them stretch their legs.

Lots of high end people from the past and present show up to them too...including the lovely Linda. And all of this happening in a little town of 149 people.

[MultiMopars]

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This also brings to mind recent posts about the strength of the NICB in recovering stolen cars. Although the posts were more about IDing rebodies. This just goes to show you that there are plenty of holes in THEIR system that prevent them from finding stolen cars that are still running around WITH their ORIGINAL V.I.N. plates in place. If this is the case how in the world do we think they are ever going to be able to truely identify a rebodied car that was never stolen or had any stolen parts used?

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If the Challenger was stolen and then went from collector to collector without being registered, then it would be very difficult to locate the car by any police officer simply running the VIN.
If it was an insured car and reported stolen originally then NICB would have the theft in their database.

If it was not insured at the time of the theft then NICB wouldn't get the info to put into their database.

The lesson here is keep your car properly insured if it is in storage.

The good thing is that since the car wasn't insured for the theft at the time, it went back to the original owner and not the insurance company.

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This is the point I am trying to make. The NICB was created to hopefully aid in recovering stolen cars and to share info with law enforcement. There is OBVIOUSLY a big hole in the system. Computers for large agencies like state DMVs have been around for a long time. How difficult can it be to simply enter ANY V.I.N. of a stolen car into a shared data base regardless of being and INSURED car or not? Even if there is no other shared data base other than NICB different states could certainly link to a list of stolen V.I.N. reports originating in THEIR state. Law enforcements FIRST responsibility is to the owner of the car that was violated and it being insured or noy is not their concern.

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Here's the solution: Lets require anyone who steals a car to have to register it it so the police can find the car much easier.
NICB is a private organization that collects information for insurance purposes. Law enforcement has access to NCIC, which is a criminal database that is federally regulated and cannot be accessed by non-law enforcement people nor can it be combined with any other non-secure database.

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If the info can't be shared with state DMV offices (which is where these stolen cars are being re-registered with the original V.I.N.s,) then it seems to me the SOLUTION is for there to be a SHARED DMV database for all states that law enforcement should report stolen vehicle reports to. Seem pretty simple to me.

[njsteve]

There are time limits for data retention based on storage capacity. There is a certain amount of time that vehicle registration information stays in DMV records. There is simply not enough capacity, both for the physical storage of paper records and the storage of digital records to retain the information for every car ever registered since 1898. Usually its 15 to 20 years. After that it's purged from their systems. NICB holds onto to data much longer due to the possibility of monetary claims arising from past losses.

Yes, it would be nice to have NICB accessible by DMVs but it is only open to law enforcement and insurance fraud investigators. One of the problems is that not many law enforcement people know about it.

[Steven J]

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This is the point I am trying to make. The NICB was created to hopefully aid in recovering stolen cars and to share info with law enforcement. There is OBVIOUSLY a big hole in the system. Computers for large agencies like state DMVs have been around for a long time. How difficult can it be to simply enter ANY V.I.N. of a stolen car into a shared data base regardless of being and INSURED car or not? Even if there is no other shared data base other than NICB different states could certainly link to a list of stolen V.I.N. reports originating in THEIR state. Law enforcements FIRST responsibility is to the owner of the car that was violated and it being insured or noy is not their concern.

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A car does NOT have to be insured to be in the NICB data base as a stolen vehicle. NICB IS tied into every state's stolen vehicle data base system. No holes.

The issue is that most thefts are purged from the stolen data base in most states after a determined amount of years and frequently don't get re-entered (this is the hole in the system). Most law enforcement don't even know about the ability to check with NICB for a records check unless they have been an auto theft investigator. NICB does not purge the theft info.


Whoops; I see that I responded before reading njsteve's posts that already addressed the issue.

[Big Block 69]

You would think that if G.G. had an invoice of a 12 minute conversation, He would also have an invoice for the fender tag he made complete with the new numbers. That would prove whether or not the tag on the car now is the one he made.

[gb70]

Galen is a very hard man to reach. I was trying to sell one of my mopars a year ago and his secretary returned my email, after several attempts of my own, 4 months later. Would have been nice, I was looking to get my fender tag certified by him. The buyer(s) feel better if he gives it his blessing. A year prior to that I left 2-3 phone messages, and emails and never got a return anything.

IMO I don't care how busy you are, common business practice should always be getting back to your CUSTOMERS within a business day or 2 at most. Still disturbs me...

[MultiMopars]

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This is the point I am trying to make. The NICB was created to hopefully aid in recovering stolen cars and to share info with law enforcement. There is OBVIOUSLY a big hole in the system. Computers for large agencies like state DMVs have been around for a long time. How difficult can it be to simply enter ANY V.I.N. of a stolen car into a shared data base regardless of being and INSURED car or not? Even if there is no other shared data base other than NICB different states could certainly link to a list of stolen V.I.N. reports originating in THEIR state. Law enforcements FIRST responsibility is to the owner of the car that was violated and it being insured or noy is not their concern.

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A car does NOT have to be insured to be in the NICB data base as a stolen vehicle. NICB IS tied into every state's stolen vehicle data base system. No holes.

The issue is that most thefts are purged from the stolen data base in most states after a determined amount of years and frequently don't get re-entered (this is the hole in the system). Most law enforcement don't even know about the ability to check with NICB for a records check unless they have been an auto theft investigator. NICB does not purge the theft info.


Whoops; I see that I responded before reading njsteve's posts that already addressed the issue.

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I didn't say that a car had to be stolen to be in the NICB files, that was njsteve. My comments about it were in response to what he said about it. Seems to be some differences of opinion about what is in there files and how they are shared. I will leave it to the two of you to work out as I obviously don't know for sure.

I have now personally had two vehicles stolen in my lifetime and from the latest conversation with my insurance company investigator it is pretty evident that a stolen vehicle can certainly be re-registered with the original V.I.N. and not be detected through the DMV. THIS is the big HOLE I am referring to. It seems pretty silly that we have V.I.N.s to accurately identify our vehicles but it doesn't seem to stop a thief (or someone they sell it to) from re-registering it with that same number.

[Steven J]

NICB does allow public access to run a VIN through them to show if it's stolen;

https://www.nicb.org/theft_and_fraud_awareness/vincheck

[Johnny Horsepower]

One thing I get out of this thread, is that people are overlooking why the fender tag may have been changed. The "mopar idiots" aren't too far off in my opinion.
It was not about hiding the VIN, since DUH, it is still on the car. I think the scumbag's objective was to make the car different from its original configuration yet still desireable, so that someone looking for the car within the hobby, would think this was a different car.
Just my theory.

JG