Alicante Province is number one for car theft

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Be worried if you live in Alicante Province

Car owners in Alicante have a right to feel a little worried about the latest statistics on Spanish Car theft as it's revealed that of the 80,000 annual thefts, almost 14,000 of them occurred in the Province. Before you dash for your calculator, that's around 40 vehicles each day that are gone in 60-seconds!

Alicante Car Thefts up 39.2%!

Diario Información published figures from the Attorney General's office, noting that Alicante has now displaced Madrid as the most likely place to find your car has gone missing. The paper noted that while vehicle theft in Spain as a whole rose by 5.4% last year, the result for Alicante was a massive increase of 39.2%!

Many of these thefts can be attributed to organised crime, with luxury cars stolen to order for export to North Africa and the Middle East.

For those of us that don't have a Porsche or Ferrari sitting in the driveway, your new everyday car could also be a target. Not 20-miles away from Torrevieja, case in point was a gang from Almoradí who over the last five years stole over 500 cars, which where then dismantled for spare parts and were sold to small garage workshops, no questions asked!

The latest figures from the UK

They highlight the most common form of car theft; Forced Ignition, Pushed / Towed Away, Forgery / Fraud (when a bankers draft or cheque turns out to be false), Keys Stolen In Burglary, Keys Stolen In A Robbery (in that the criminal confronts and threatens the car driver for the keys), Keys Left In Car, Keys falsely obtained from a dealership and Taking Without Consent, where a friend, work colleague or family member takes the keys for the car and drives away without the owners agreement.

You've been warned.

Install an immobiliser, an alarm, don't leave your car with the keys in the ignition, lock your car in your driveway at night and avoid diving in areas where you feel uneasy, no matter how kind and soothing the lady on your Sat Nav may sound; as she takes you on that ‘short cut' through an interesting part of town!

News story by Keith Nicol mcij (Tel: (+34) 609 06 36 14)

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