Missing ID Numbers the Key to Valley-Russia Car Theft Case

It was the case of the Russian connection.

Police who searched Oleg Kotlyarevsky’s auto body shop in Van Nuys last week found wrecked cars stripped of their vehicle identification numbers. They found the missing numbers later the same day when they searched a warehouse at Los Angeles Harbor in San Pedro and stumbled upon four stolen Jeeps destined for Russia.

Police suspect that Kotlyarevsky switched vehicle ID numbers from wrecks to stolen cars and used forged DMV documents to export them from the United States, a practice that officers say is not unusual.

Each year, 73,000 cars are stolen in the San Fernando Valley and across Los Angeles, and an estimated 15% are either stripped for parts or exported to foreign countries, according to police. Popular destinations for the stolen American cars include the Philippines, Central America, Germany and other parts of Europe, where they can be resold for as much as triple their retail price in the United States, police say.

“It’s getting to be more and more common as the value of cars increase and the economy gets worse,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Bill Fulton.

Range Rovers, Mercedeses, Porsches and even Dodge Caravans are favorite targets among thieves, who choose models to suit their clients, Detective Gary Sims said. Police suspect Kotlyarevsky of shipping Jeeps to Russia.

“Apparently they’re very prized” in the former U.S.S.R., Burbank Police Detective Craig Ratliff said.

Burbank police arrested Kotlyarevsky, 27, of Hollywood on Tuesday for allegedly shoplifting a pair of shoes from a Price Club store. In his car they found $40,000 worth of cocaine and a briefcase containing a forged Department of Motor Vehicles title and other blank DMV forms, police said.

Other papers, written in Russian, were found in the briefcase and led investigators to believe that one car had already been shipped to Russia, Ratliff said.

Detectives traced a number from one of the documents and determined that it was a vehicle identification number belonging to a Honda that had been reported stolen from the West Valley, Ratliff said. Information gleaned from the papers also led detectives to San Pedro, where they found the four stolen Jeeps.

Vehicle identification numbers discovered on the Jeeps belonged to the wrecks that detectives had found at Kotlyarevsky’s auto body shop, Ratliff said, adding that authorities were told the Jeeps had been shipped to Russia.

Detectives also confiscated a roll of film that Kotlyarevsky had taken to Price Club to have developed. It contained pictures of the stolen cars, Ratliff said. Detectives suspect Kotlyarevsky planned to use the photos to advertise the cars to prospective buyers, he said. A plane ticket to Russia was also found on Kotlyarevsky at his arrest.

Fulton said it appeared Kotlyarevsky was shipping the stolen cars to family members in Russia. Ratliff said people in other countries, including the former Czechoslovakia, are also suspected of being involved in Kotlyarevsky’s ring.

Kotlyarevsky, who is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail, pleaded not guilty Thursday in Burbank Municipal Court to possession of a controlled substance for sale and possession of a falsified vehicle registration, Deputy Dist. Atty. Elizabeth Siegmund said. Federal charges may also be filed against Kotlyarevsky for allegedly exporting stolen cars. Efforts to reach Kotlyarevsky’s attorney were unsuccessful.

Stopping the international traffic in stolen cars is a tough task since as many as 4,000 vehicles are shipped out of Los Angeles Harbor each month, said Fred Parham, supervisory customs inspector for the U.S. Customs Service on Terminal Island. Another 40,000 or more large sealed containers, some of which may contain cars, are shipped out of the harbor each month, he said.

“It’s like trying to find a needle in the haystack. . . . The only thing is that I don’t think we’ve even found the haystack,” Parham said.

Parham described his agency’s ability to uncover stolen cars as “hit-and-miss” and said the trade in stolen cars is especially bad in Southern California because of its proximity to the border with Mexico.

Authorities complain that penalties for auto theft are not severe enough to discourage the practice.

“If you break into a house and steal a television, you go to prison,” said Sims. “But if you steal a $60,000 Mercedes and get caught and get sentenced to probation, then what’s to stop you from stealing another Mercedes?”

Some thieves don’t even bother to switch legal vehicle identification numbers to stolen cars and simply submit false paperwork to customs officials, taking the risk that the cars won’t be inspected, Sims said. Other thieves simply have their cars shipped to relatives in other countries and then report them as stolen to insurance companies.

Efforts to control the traffic in stolen cars were beefed up in 1990, when a German man was arrested after exporting eight stolen Porsches and Corvettes to Germany and selling two of them for $100,000.

Following that case, Los Angeles police detectives teamed up with customs officials and formed a joint task force, which determined that the harbor had become a popular exit for stolen cars bound for foreign soil.

As a result, customs inspectors now work with Los Angeles police and other law enforcement agencies as well as the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which is funded by the insurance industry to assist officials trying to locate stolen cars and other goods.