— crime chief suspects some auto dealers are linked to carjackings

ASSISTANT Commissioner of Police and Crime Chief, Paul Williams is not ruling out that some carjacking could be tied to local auto dealers.

“We are not ruling out anyone and we are not putting any cap saying that person or that person would not be involved in this kind of activities,” Williams told Guyana Chronicle.
Williams said where the intelligence leads, the police will go, pointing out that based on the intelligence of his unit, auto dealers are likely involved in carjacking.

According to Williams, he has personally had to deal with instances where persons who would have purchased vehicles from auto dealers would wake up and find their vehicles missing, not knowing that it has been repossessed by the dealers.

He said that in many cases, persons are only in arrears of as little as $300,000 but car dealers would send their agents to repossess the vehicles, although not being armed with a court order to do so.

“Since I am here, I have had to deal with cases where people come and ask for intervention. The dealers have lawyers and they will tell you their lawyers advised them that the matters are private ones and they would like to stick to that notion. However, I am aware that in order for you to carry out a cease order, you need to have something from the court giving you that directive.”

He explained that there are cases in which vehicles are repossessed and repeated efforts by the owners to contact the auto dealers proved futile.
There are also cases in which previous owners see the vehicle on the road and they would be of the opinion that it is being driven by someone who may have stolen it from them and would try to repossess it.

Williams said these cases make the incident appear as carjacking or robbery when in fact, it is the dealers who repossess the vehicles at night and refuse to make contact with the persons from whom the vehicles were repossessed.

The vehicles are then sold to others, sometimes for as much as three times the price the vehicles were initially sold for.

The crime chief stressed that he is aware that once a vehicle is registered in someone’s name, the vehicle belongs to that person and any action to repossess the vehicle must be done through the court.