The recently released January-June 1999 crime statistics had great news for all Floridians.

The state saw an overall 8 percent drop in crime and Miami-Dade County saw a corresponding 9.75 percent decrease. For the past three years, during every annual and biennial reporting period, our Miami-Dade crime rate has consistently dropped. These positive steps in our war against crime are due to the relentless police work and tough prosecution practices.

Buried deep within the same report is a little noticed statistic, which is a tribute to our innovative approaches aimed at curbing crime. While state-wide, car thefts dropped by 10.7 percent indicating that Floridians had 5,730 fewer cars stolen, the decrease in Miami-Dade County car thefts, a whopping 22 percent, provided the bulk of that Florida-wide drop.

Nationally and statewide, car thefts have been one of the most difficult crimes to bring under control. However, we have been developing an approach to help turn a corner on this crime.

In the first six months of 1999, 3,705 fewer vehicles were stolen in this county. Our Multi-Agency Auto Theft Task Force has been a key element in this decrease. This task force has been a unified effort of prosecutors from the State Attorney’s Office working hand-in-hand with the Miami-Dade Police Department, the Miami Police Department, the Florida Highway Patrol, the U.S. Customs Service, skilled investigators from the National Insurance Crime Bureau and auto theft investigators from such insurance companies as Allstate, Progressive and State Farm, to name just a few. They all have committed their expertise and energy to dramatically bringing down our rates of car theft.

A new statistic for September showing a 69 percent decrease in car thefts in the area of the Miami Airport shows how good policing, combined with good policies, can have an impact. The airport has had a high rate of car theft reports, many of which were long suspected of being fraudulent for insurance purposes.

To help deter thefts, a midnight inventory of the cars parked at the airport parking garages was undertaken and an effort was made to publicize the fact. Abruptly, the number of cars reported stolen at the airport dropped. This indicates that both car thefts and fraudulent car theft reports were affected.

The Multi-Agency Auto Theft Task Force works by taking an aggressive approach to the costly crime that costs Americans over $7 billion annually. Recognizing that there are no borders that limit this crime, law enforcement officers, prosecutors and insurance industry experts work together to develop the different approaches which are a foundation for this success.

We know this is not a crime limited by city and county boundaries. We share information on suspects, their haunts and how they operate just as we share insight into new trends and directions taken by organized thieves. Our strategy is to build on the success of cases involving organized auto theft, chop shop operations, salvage yards, motor vehicle body shops, intertwined with investigations of drivers license fraud and insurance fraud schemes involving vehicles or their component parts and interdiction of the illegal export of stolen motor vehicles.

We have brought closer scrutiny on fraudulent title transfer applications; investigated corruption at tag agencies; improved safeguards to prevent title fraud; prosecuted the purchasers of stolen vehicles who were fully aware that their vehicles were stolen; prosecuted vehicles owners who falsely reported their vehicles stolen so they could collect the insurance proceeds; prosecuted car brokers who sold stolen cars with fraudulent titles; prosecuted stolen vehicle exporters who submitted fraudulent documents to customs; prosecuted used car dealers who rebuilt salvage cars with stolen parts; utilized modern tracking equipment to track stolen cars to storage facilities, body shops or shipping ports and stepped up high tech inspections of export containers to end the illegal export of stole vehicles and gather information to prosecute the shippers of this contraband.

The Task Force prosecutors also provide assistance to the Department of Insurance fraud investigators with criminal case preparation to strengthen their criminal cases.

The crime statistics show the results of these approaches. In the 1998 Florida Department of Law Enforcement year long report, the statistics demonstrate a solid 7.7 percent annual reduction in the number of cars stolen in Miami-Dade County, surpassing the 4.4 percent statewide reduction. Looking back six years ago before the creation of the task force, the 1993 crime statistics reported 40,055 cars stolen. The 1998 total of 31,340 amounts to a 21.7 percent reduction in auto theft in Miami-Dade County over those six years. Statewide since 1993 there has been a 9.1 percent reduction in car thefts, from 114,632 to 104,094. Miami-Dade’s theft totals are dropping twice as fast as the rest of the state. In fact, the reduction of stolen cars in Miami-Dade accounts for 83 percent of the statewide car theft decrease since 1993.

Motor vehicle theft is not just a “quality of life” issue or a paperwork crime. It is often tied into other criminal activity. A recent tragedy in Palm Beach County, where an elderly purse snatch victim was dragged to her death under a car as she tried to stop the crime, is a sad illustration of this fact.

Reports indicated that the thieves were a part of a large, organized car theft ring targeting the I-95 corridor. Suppressing these types of theft rings, which sold stolen cars to illegitimate repair shops and exporters, is a valuable strategy in the effort to impact other serious felonies.

Katherine Fernandez Rundle is Miami-Dade State Attorney. She is a Pinecrest resident