It seems like everyone is focusing on the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. While it comes with the loss of life and the promise of holding up vehicle and car component imports, were surprised to see how little attention is being paid to how this will impact the exportation of stolen cars.
The Port of Baltimore is popular for shipping stolen cars.
After all, car theft rings are swiping luxury SUVs just to put bread on the table for their starving family. While everyone can pretend to be an expert on container ships and bridge engineering, the fact of the matter is the Port of Baltimore is a popular place to move stolen cars from the US to awaiting customers in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere.
Now this important part of the world economy, where Americans and their insurance policies help bankroll cheap luxury vehicles for people in other countries, has been put in serious jeopardy.
Its almost like nobody cares about the financial well-being of car theft rings and their starving employees.
But, just like with vehicle and car parts imports, its likely other ports of the East Coast will pick up the slack and soon will be shipping out more stolen cars.
As weve highlighted before, criminals try sneaking stolen cars through ports by putting them in shipping containers surrounded by legitimate items like mattresses. US Customs and Border Patrol tries catching them, scanning containers and opening any which seem suspicious.
Often the money generated by smuggling out stolen cars, then selling them overseas helps to fund terrorism, the drug trade, and human trafficking. Were sure these theft rings are already working overtime to figure out how to shift things from Baltimore to other ports, so everyone needs to keep investing more into guarding against vehicle theft.
Image via CBC News/YouTube