The international police organization Interpol said on Tuesday that there has been a worldwide surge in car theft, with one vehicle being stolen every 10 seconds. It urged improved cross-border cooperation to combat car thieves.

The announcement came at the fourth international conference on "Insurance Fraud and Motor Vehicle Theft and Smuggling," held in Sofia on Tuesday. The forum was attended by officers of interior ministries and insurance companies from 22 countries, Interpol and Europol.

"Vehicle thefts and smuggling are often perpetrated by technically well-equipped criminal structures associated with legal businesses - mainly trading companies - interacting with similar foreign criminal groups," the Interior Ministry chief secretary Boiko Borisov said. In his opening address, Interior Minister Georgi Petkanov said the fight against the smuggling of stolen vehicles is an important element in the fight against organized crime.

Borissov said that 7,082 thefts of motor vehicles were registered in Bulgaria in January-August, down 2.6 per cent from a year earlier. Car thefts peaked in 1994, when they stood at 18,807. Last year, vehicle thefts totaled 11,056.

Motor thefts constitute 7.5 per cent of all crimes registered in Bulgaria. Some 70 per cent of such thefts are reported in the big cities of Sofia, Varna, Bourgas and Plovdiv. Thieves most often steal Volkswagens, Audis, Mercedes, Opels, Fords, Fiats and BMWs. Nearly six per cent of cars stolen this year belonged to foreign nationals. The proportion of armed roadside robberies to all crimes has also declined to 0.8 per cent. But the good news is for Bulgaria only.

"Interpol officials worldwide are tracing an ever-increasing rise in vehicle-related crimes," said Interpol European Liaison Bureau head Iver Frigaard. "Three million vehicles disappear each year and the criminals make an annual profit of about $19 billion," he added.

He said countries should provide up-to-date information about car crime in Interpol's database and use it more efficiently to help their law enforcement bodies fight organized crime. Some 80 states currently use the database.

In the European Union, car theft fell last year with the exception of a few states, said Dirk Vande Ryse from the Stolen Vehicle Group of the Hague-based European Police Organization (Europol). His group was set up to improve anti-crime cooperation between EU members and works in close partnership with Interpol.

The worst case within the EU was France, where the number of registered car thefts increased by 70 per cent in 2000 compared to 1999. "Especially worrying was a new trend in Europe of thieves stopping cars and demanding drivers surrender the keys at gunpoint," said Vande Ryse. "What is most worrying about the European Union is that there is an increase of stolen vehicles which are not traced. We believe organized crime is responsible for that," he said.

Most cars stolen in Western Europe are smuggled to Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.