DUSHANBE, January 8, 2014, Asia-Plus – A statement, posted on Tajik Interior Ministry’s website on January 8, notes that 127 cars stolen from other countries, including 57 cars stolen from Germany (mainly BMWs), have been registered in Tajikistan since 2011.
There are no relatives of President Emomali Rahmon among owners of 57 cars stolen from Germany, the statement says.
According to the statement, cars from Germany and the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) are carried to Tajikistan by rail and they cross several border (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan) before reaching Tajikistan. Appropriate documents are shown to customs services on those borders.
During state registration, each vehicle delivered to Tajikistan is checked through ASF and I-BATCH systems, which are connected to Interpol via 1-Link channel.
“If any violation connected with auto theft or carjacking is detected, it is automatically reported to the law enforcement bodies and search is initiated. For its party, the search initiator should prepare necessary documents and send them through diplomatic channels to the country, where the stolen car was detected,” the statement said, noting that the search initiators in Germany have not sent any official information on Tajikistan to INTERPOL”s National Central Bureau.
INTERPOL has the stolen motor vehicles (SMV) database, which now contains information about 7.6 million stolen cars. According to some media sources, 50,000 cars have been stolen from Germany over the last three months.
“127 cases of delivery of stolen cars to Tajikistan, including 57 stolen German cars, have been registered since 2011 and the Interior Ministry leadership has been informed of all those cases and investigation has been launched into all those cases. These cars have been put on a special list. There are no members of the government and relatives of President Emomali Rahmon among owners of those cars,” the statement notes.
Tajik Interior Ministry stresses that Tajikistan and Germany have signed any document regarding the mechanism of detention and return of stolen vehicles.
Meanwhile, there is a draft government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and Germany on security and crime prevention. Tajikistan has reportedly adopted this document, but Germany has not yet adopted it.
Article 13 of this draft agreement reportedly provides for jointly combating international trafficking in stolen vehicles.
We will recall that the German daily
Bild
reported on December 19, 2013 that that some 200 stolen cars from Germany, including 93 BMWs, have been tracked down in Tajikistan.
Bild
said the cars were located in Tajikistan through the vehicles” GPS tracking systems. Most of the stolen cars are now owned by people connected to President Emomali Rahmon,
Bild
noted.
Tajik Embassy in Berlin dismissed the allegation as unfounded. The embassy said it had in the past asked Berlin to provide information from its database of stolen cars to Tajik authorities to prevent their illegal import into Tajikistan.
Tajik Foreign Ministry said on December 20, 2013 that it is looking into German media’s claim. The ministry cast doubts on the claim, saying “German cars cross several state borders before reaching Tajikistan” and that “any falsified documents would have been discovered by customs services on those borders.”
