The new geography of stolen goods

Container shipping & customs

• Several comments question how “anyone can book a container” and why exporters aren’t tightly registered and monitored, suggesting stricter sender vetting, blacklists, and use of container weight as a fraud signal.
• Others counter that UK exports are non-trivial (cars, machinery, pharma, alcohol, clothing, etc.) and that checking every outbound container would cripple trade.
• Ports are described as focused on imports (people, drugs) rather than exports; the article itself notes exports are “hardly checked at all.”

Law enforcement capacity & incentives

• Repeated theme: car theft/export persists because it’s a low priority. Specialist units are tiny relative to the scale of crime; solving thefts competes with other policing tasks.
• Some argue organized crime is effectively a policy choice: with more resourcing and changed incentives, networks could be disrupted.
• Debate over whether democratic governments “don’t care” about ordinary property versus focusing on visible or revenue-generating offenses (e.g., drug fines).

Encryption, surveillance & privacy

• One faction sees the article’s line about encrypted communications as surveillance messaging, questioning how more data or weakened crypto would help when police ignore clear leads (e.g., tracked devices).
• Others respond that modern, robust, ubiquitous encryption and secure phones do materially raise the bar for investigations and are historically unprecedented, while still acknowledging mass-surveillance backdoors are dangerous.
• Extended back-and-forth over whether pre-digital policing ever had comparable access to communications, and whether privacy has actually worsened or improved.

Container scanning & technology

• Some propose x-ray/strip-imaging systems to scan all containers and compare contents to manifests; skeptics highlight sheer volume, time, and cost.
• Others note existing systems: many countries already scan nearly all incoming containers (mainly for radiation, weapons, drugs), but not outgoing cargo nor for stolen goods.
• Idea emerges that intelligence-led targeting of a few key networks is more realistic than blanket inspection.

Economic and insurance angles

• Discussion about insurance companies: why not fund serious anti-theft enforcement instead of just raising premiums?
• Counterpoint: insurers can simply pass on costs; collaboration to reduce thefts across the market is hard, and higher total costs can still be profitable.
• Some highlight “broken windows fallacy” reasoning that theft boosts GDP (new sales, repairs, insurance activity) but is economically harmful overall.

Types of cars & theft risk

• Contrast between “dumb,” cheap cars that are unattractive targets and high-end or connected cars.
• Teslas are praised by some for hard-to-spoof keyless entry, tracking, and remote bricking, but others note they’re still vulnerable if the phone is stolen, and tow-truck theft remains possible.

International anecdotes & crime stats

• UK: claim that only 5% of crimes and 2% of vehicle thefts are solved provokes debate over recording rules, difficulty of policing, and comparisons to countries like Japan.
• Canada: multiple anecdotes show police inaction even when victims can locate vehicles via trackers, tied to low clearance rates and higher priorities (violent crime).
• Some argue high clearance rates tend to correlate with authoritarian policing; others stress falling or rising crime trends and question data reliability.