Car and motorcycle thefts increase

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Anin, 28, dropped into a minimarket in Tanjung Barat, South Jakarta. Five minutes later when he came out again, he found that his motorcycle was gone.

"That was quick ... I locked my motorcycle up well, and still they could make off with it in less than five minutes. As well as that, they did it in a busy area. They really have a nerve ...," he told The Jakarta Post recently.

The city police recorded that motorcycle and car thefts jumped almost 90 percent from 2,552 cases in the first five months of 2004 to 4,425 cases in the same period this year.

Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono agreed that car and motorcycle thieves were getting more daring and were prepared to operate in busy neighborhoods and malls.

"They are also becoming more sophisticated at it ... They have to be quick to get the better of the owners and the police," he told the Post on Wednesday.

The thieves, Tjiptono said, intentionally opted to work in busy and crowded places, such as the parking lots of malls and office buildings as people tended to ignore what was happening around them.

"They just pretend they are the owners of the motorcycle or car, and without any hesitation they will just break the lock and make off with it. Do you really care about a car or motorcycle if it is not yours?," he remarked.

The sharp increase in the number of auto thefts has not been matched by a corresponding increase in the number of cases solved by the police.

Of 4,425 thefts in the first five months of this year, the police only managed to solve 115 cases, compared to 144 out of 2,552 cases last year.

Given the poor detection rate, it is little wonder that many people complain about the police's failure to find their missing cars or motorcycles.

Anin, who immediately reported the theft of his motorcycle to the police, said that he had little confidence that the police would be able to recover his motorcycle.

"Many of my friends told me that they have never heard of their motorcycles or their cars again after reporting their cases to the police. They said that they didn't know what happened as the police kept telling them to be patient," he said.

Tjiptono also revealed that the number of theft and robbery cases, including armed and aggravated robbery and theft, increased by almost 25 percent to 24,091 cases in the first five months of the year from only 19,792 cases during the same period last year.