Impala-Thon in Philly

[njsteve]

Though the PA State Police may have run a current stolen check on the VINs that in no way means there wasn't a theft issue well into the past. Normally the "stolen" status stays on the law enforcement records for about 10 years, then gets purged. The period may be less depending on the statute of limitations for the theft. Otherwise every car that was ever stolen in the past 100 years would still be on the records and the data storage issues would be beyond comprehension. Imagine going to your local police station and asking them for the theft report on a car stolen in 1962. Think they still have it?

This is one of the things that NICB (National Insurance Crime Bureau) does: they can do off-line searches for old theft reports through their insurance claims records - records that are archived, not purged. So the end result is that there still may be issues well into the future for a prospective buyer from a ill-reputed seller.

[Dog427435]

Record checks can't be that hard - remember this story from 2 years ago?


Stolen Corvette found after 37 years
A Corvette sports car stolen when it was brand new in New York 37 years ago has been recovered in California and will be returned to its rightful owner, authorities said on Monday.

The 1968 car, which vanished from Alan Poster's garage in the borough of Queens on January 22, 1969, was identified as stolen as it was being loaded on a container ship for Sweden last November, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Mike Fleming said.

The car had recently been purchased for $10,000 (5,680 pounds) by a man in Sweden who was unaware it had been stolen nearly four decades earlier, Fleming said. Since Poster's insurance at the time did not cover the Corvette's theft and he was never compensated, he is entitled to get it back.

[Verne_Frantz]

I used to meet up with a guy at Carlisle every year who was (then) an active cop outside Chicago and specialized in auto theft. He would locate a suspicious car then run the VIN through the NICB records. He found several that were stolen many years prior and in most cases was able to return them to the original owner. He said the most satisfying part of his job was when he tracked down the original owner and made the phone call to let him know his old car (now fully restored) was found and waiting for him to pick it up!

One story involved a '67 GTO that he snooped at the Mecum auction.

Verne