Texas rental custody steels fuel cross -border crime, new bill is supposed to close gaps

Austin, Texas – A disturbing trend has developed in the most important Texas cities for years. Stolen vehicles, as soon as a localized problem, increasingly drives south and drives criminal companies across the border. This is not just about minor theft. It is a sophisticated operation that uses weaknesses in the rental car industry and ultimately affects everyday Texans.

The situation was already strong five years ago. Pictures of cars with ball holes and with cartel graffiti marks a dark picture. These were not just abandoned vehicles; They were war tools. As Sheriff Martin Cuellar from Webb County explained in a 2019 archive: “In Nuevo Laredo there were some real bad weapons battles, and we do our jobs by stopping this vehicle from going south and being used by the cartels.”

But the methods have developed. Now criminal social media use to recruit younger drivers. The deception: Rent a car, buy the collision damage – waiver (CDW) – a contract that protects the tenant from liability – and then simply leave the keys in the car. In the morning the vehicle is “disappeared” and disappeared into a network that hit these cars south.

Craig Sepich from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (Nicb) describes the social media contribution as shocking: “This is incredibly shocking. It is simply the most that you know, the brazen kind of crime.

“The NICB is now supporting the proposed draft law of the Texan state representative John Lujan from San Antonio, who aims to reduce this criminal conspiracy on rental car companies.

Sepich explains the intention of the proposed law: “It is about this deficiency if people may not be open to cooperation with investigators, law enforcement rental, and the tightening of these parameters to ensure that people do not deliberately exploit loohoathooles.”

Lujan's proposed law tries to make the collision damage in the event of rental vehicle theft and fraud too invalid if the tenant:

• Does not give back the key.
• Can not submit a police report within 24 hours.
• Can not fully work with the rental company and a law enforcement agency or another authority that examines the stolen vehicle.

According to Lujan, the financial burden of this fraud does not only fall on rental companies.

“Ultimately, they could steal a car, they could steal money from these insurance companies, but those who really pay for it are those who are honest with the laws that are honest. The costs of these fraudulent claims ultimately lead to increased insurance premiums for everyone.

The extent of the problem is significant. Data made available by Enterprise Mobility, which are made up of enterprise, Alamo and National rental cars, show that “more than 100 non -restored vehicles from the regions of Houston and San Antonio were confirmed by license -shield readers as crossing the border over 70% of the vehicles.

San Antonio has laid this trend towards the top metropolises for vehicle theft rates nationwide. Sepich states: “The analysis that we carried out has currently classified San Antonio as 18th in the nation for metropolitan regions for vehicle theft rates that will have an enormous impact on people in these communities.”

The representative of the Lujan representative is a crucial step in order not only to protect rental car companies from this organized fraud, but also to ensure that legitimate tenants are still covered in real cases of theft. It is a step to close the gaps that criminals exploit, and to ensure that honest Texans did not leave the bill for these cross -border crimes.

You can click here to see some of our previous stories from 2019 and 2020 on the stolen cars to the south.