The Nigeria Police says it has concluded plans to put an end to car theft in the country.
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Ayotunde Omodeinde, who represented the force at the launching of a new automated car monitoring device, PoliceBCMR, said he hoped the device would also prevent the public from buying stolen vehicles.
The PoliceBCMR is an initiative introduced by the Association of Motor Dealers of Nigeria in partnership with Media Concepts International Limited, to prevent the theft and purchase of stolen vehicles.
Omodeinde said at the official signing of an agreement for the use of PoliceBCMR in Lagos, that stolen vehicles always found their way to car dealers and the dealers end up selling these vehicles without their knowledge.
“In the course of our investigation, when we trace stolen cars to dealers, they usually end up losing their money because they would have already paid for them. The car dealers also suffer a lot of inconveniences so the police working with AMDON will ensure that when vehicles are brought to them, they will be checked to see if they are stolen or not.”
He added that whenever a stolen vehicle is brought to a member of AMDON, he or she has a duty of informing them discretely so that the police will be able to recover the vehicle.
“This is a very wonderful initiative by the Inspector-General of Police to ensure the integration of AMDON system with the PoliceBCMR. It will enable us to track stolen vehicles and make it easy for the members of the public to buy vehicles without trouble,” he added.
The National President of AMDON, Ajibade Adedoyin, described the innovation as historic in the Nigerian auto industry. According to him, the association has been working on its development for the past four years.
He said, “It would be of benefit to auto dealers and members of the public because we are the ones that service majority of those that use cars in Nigeria. Our members, through buying or selling of cars that they didn’t know were stolen have been run out of business. When we look at all these, we came up with this concept and decided to partner with the police so that we can look for a way to reduce the money and resources wasted on stolen cars.
“We all know that a vehicle could be brought to you with original documents and still be a stolen vehicle. If the police get to know that a car is stolen, the dealer will be made to refund the money but they will not tell the armed robbers to refund money to the dealer. So, we are at the receiving end. I think this concept is a win-win situation both for the buyers, sellers and the Nigerian Police Force.”
Source: Punchng.com
