Another superfine day coming up tomorrow, details live at 11.
1994.
And this is the Thursday edition of Dateline NBC.
This is Dateline NBC, tonight.
They can break into your car, steal it, and drive it right across the Mexican border.
Tell me how you steal a car.
A car?
Well, not for me, no.
Tonight we'll show you how they swipe your car, fake the papers, then ship it abroad.
We've heard that you can even get around the checkpoints by taking off down dirt roads
and things.
Could your car be next?
Tonight, a Dateline survivor story.
A bad spill at the top of the stretch.
It was a ride many thought might be her last.
The pain from that, you just shriek bloody murder.
But racing's golden girl knew what it would take to whip herself back into shape.
Did you ever think it was over, but maybe you wouldn't race again?
Tonight, can she beat the odds and get back in the saddle?
Do you think I'm the best doctor in the whole world?
The feeling of making love will never be part of my life again.
He says this doctor did something to him that drove him over the edge.
I have to take the law in my own hands.
So he took his revenge, in a fit of anger other men are feeling too.
It is killing us, and we're not supposed to get angry about it?
If you're one of the millions of Americans who may one day have to deal with prostate
cancer, this is a story you must see.
Two months ago in a stock picking contest, this Wall Street pro finished behind them
and even her.
Tonight can Frank Curzio catch Casey and the kids in the Dateline challenge?
And from stocks to bonds, Jane Bonds, your pick versus the producers for the new 007.
Plus, better late than never, Dateline's picture of the week.
Dateline, with anchors Jane Pauli and Stone Phillips, with Brian Ross, Debra Roberts,
John Scott, Lee Thompson, Faith Daniels, Dennis Murphy, and Betty Rolland.
From our studios in New York, here are Stone Phillips and Jane Pauli.
Good evening.
Do you know where your car is?
Whether your car is parked on the street or in a garage, do you know for certain that
it's safe right now?
It's hard to be sure.
Thieves steal thousands of cars every day.
And even if yours is safe, you're still paying a price.
Car theft tax an estimated $200 a year onto every car owner's insurance bill.
And tonight you're going behind the scenes to see who's taking the cars and how easily
they're making their getaways.
Here's Lee Thompson.
Early morning.
The border.
Cars are waiting in line to pass through customs into Mexico.
There's a customs official walking up to the tan four-wheel drive.
What he doesn't know is the car is stolen.
Just like that.
Another car stolen from somewhere in the U.S. through the border and on its way.
It happens every day.
And going everywhere.
Mexican authorities are really trying to crack down.
And here at the border, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of American cars in
impoundment lots waiting to be returned.
But for every U.S. stolen car we found here, there are 500 times as many other cars that
are being smuggled overseas every year that will never be found and never returned.
Once it's across the border, there's not much that they can do to get it back.
Car thief Daniel Von Helm used a chalkboard to show us how complex the inner workings
of the stolen car business are.
He used to steal on demand for international brokers.
And what would you make for stealing that car?
He would generally give me about $2,000 for almost any vehicle.
Von Helm says he was part of a network of clever crooks.
The drivers usually paid anywhere from $500 to $1,000 also.
We found Von Helm because he made one wrong turn in his career driving this stolen four-wheel
drive truck into this California garage.
That's him in the blue shirt.
He thought he was selling to a Mexican organized crime family.
But this surveillance tape was part of an undercover police sting.
Von Helm says even though he's now in prison, he was a very good car thief.
I repossessed cars for a year, so I had some legal experience.
Tell me how you steal a car.
Is it hard?
Well, not for me, no.
And he also says getting across the border with a stolen car is a cinch.
Very low-risk, very high-profit business.
That's because thieves easily avoid checkpoints by veering off onto dusty back roads like
this in the free zone, a 15-mile strip between the borders of the U.S. and Mexico.
And if they run up against a greedy Mexican police officer or federally...
A hundred dollars would usually suffice to make him happy.
Sometimes it's just a matter of giving one of the federales a bottle of tequila or something.
Just last month, Mexican federales themselves were spotted driving 20 new four-wheel drive
cars, all with California license plates.
Two of the plates were checked with the Department of Motor Vehicles, which reported both stolen.
Mexico, like many other countries, does require papers indicating vehicle ownership.
These are all counterfeit, just fill in the blanks.
But Los Angeles police detective Robert Graybell says forged or stolen documents are often
used to get through the border.
There's such a volume going through the border now.
Somebody hands you one of these, and you have 39 people waiting for it to go across the
border.
You're in a little bit of a hurry, and it would pass.
If you get in the description of this guy with the white shirt...
Graybell heads up an auto theft task force called Seacats.
Its efforts include tracking and shutting down illegal paper mills where crooks produce
and sell phony social security cards, driver's licenses, and car titles.
What happens is we'll take them off, and they're back in business with three or four months.
Not the same people, a different group.
That's the problem we have, supply and demand.
We have a real demand for these, so somebody has to supply them.
The war on smuggled cars is being fought not only on our streets and borders, but also at
the shipping docks.
If you steal a car, where might it go?
Guatemala, Belize, Cuba, Hong Kong, Thailand, all over the world.
Whiskey, Delta, Bravo, Echo Alpha.
Florida police say 100 cars a day are swiped in Dade County alone.
In this dock, the Dade Auto Task Force finds four stolen vehicles, including a dump truck,
all bound for Venezuela.