“American imports”: Stolen cars reach Iraq via an international smuggling network
“American imports”: Stolen cars reach Iraq via an international smuggling network
2025-12-28 03:44
Shafaq News – Special Translation
The issue of the car smuggling network from the US state of Michigan to the Middle East, specifically to Iraq and Dubai, is gaining traction, as federal authorities revealed that the phenomenon of car theft is escalating and has reached thousands, and that criminals are increasingly relying on young people to carry out the thefts, according to a report by the US website “Fox News”.
Fox News reported , in a report translated by Shafaq News Agency, that a federal court in September charged eight people with running an international car theft and smuggling operation in Detroit. The indictment includes 12 charges, as the eight defendants conspired with others to coordinate the delivery of stolen cars at one of four commercial or industrial sites in the greater Detroit area. The gang members would place at least two stolen cars in shipping containers and then send them to nearby coastal cities via road freight or rail .
According to the indictment, as the containers arrive in several coastal cities, the containers transporting the cars are shipped abroad .
The report quoted Dearborn Police Officer Daniel Bartok as saying that “many vehicles were shipped to the Middle East, including locations such as Iraq and Dubai.”
The US report indicated that federal prosecutors identified the suspects as: Haider al-Haidari (41 years old), Karrar al-Naqqash (43 years old), Abbas al-Othman (42 years old), Muhammad al-Hilu (36 years old), Mustafa al-Fatlawi (46 years old), Terrell Davis (33 years old), David Roshinsky Williams (32 years old), and Muhammad al-Aboudi (35 years old).
The report quoted Matthew Stentz, an official in the Internal Security Investigations Unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Detroit, as saying, “Our efforts have resulted in the recovery of more than 350 stolen vehicles, and behind every stolen vehicle there is a victim,” adding that investigative and law enforcement officers continue “to make the necessary efforts to eliminate these operations that harm the lives of American citizens.”
According to the report, this indictment reflects a new episode in the escalating series of car thefts across Michigan in recent years. Data from the state Department of Justice shows that in 2023, there were approximately 28,408 reported car thefts, representing a 4.1% increase compared to the previous year and a 48.4% increase compared to the data from the past five years .
The report also quoted Kyle McAfee, a retired Michigan State Police detective and expert in identifying stolen cars, as saying, “Detroit is a coastal city, where you can put anything in a shipping container, and it will arrive at the port in a very short time.” He added that organized crime gangs often target cars from factory yards or parked cars on the streets, while some criminals resort to recruiting young people, given that legal penalties are less severe with regard to minors .
According to McAfee, as reported, they “pay minors very small amounts to transport these cars to wherever they want to sell them. They remove any tracking devices, and may cut the car into pieces to put in a shipping container under the name of car parts, and when it arrives at its destination, they may reassemble it.”
McAfee went on to say that once the shipping container arrives at the port, criminals often falsify shipping records to mislead officials about its contents, as they may say it is household furniture when it may contain five cars.
He pointed out that this process makes it almost impossible for authorities to verify the contents of each of the millions of containers that pass through each port annually, as organized crime groups within the United States often coordinate with international criminals .
The report noted that the rise in car thefts across Michigan forced state officials to create an anti-auto fraud task force.
It is noted that Iraq is full of “American import” cars, which are imported through car auctions, and are often involved in accidents or not, and arrive in Iraq via different routes, either to Iraqi ports in Basra or to the free zone in Jordan and are shipped overland .
Some of these cars are below the import model specified for Iraq, so they enter through devious means and with forged papers, or they are registered as spare parts and sold inside Iraq without official traffic plates, or they are within the specified model and enter legally and are registered in the traffic departments .
shafaq.com
