You’ll be able to blame the Covid pandemic for yet one more factor: a surge in auto thefts.

Automobile thefts in the US jumped 9% final 12 months from a 12 months earlier to 873,000, the best quantity in additional than a decade, based on statistics from the Nationwide Insurance coverage Crime Bureau supplied to CNBC’s “American Greed.”

The pandemic created a “good storm” of situations for auto thefts to extend, mentioned NICB President and CEO David Glawe.

“Now we have plenty of disenfranchised youth which might be unemployed, and outreach applications are shut down or restricted on account of Covid,” he mentioned. “There’s frustration and anger in society. We’re additionally seeing public security useful resource limitations and withdrawal of proactive policing on account of price range constraints.”

Automobiles are additionally particularly beneficial today. Due to tight provide and heavy post-pandemic demand, used car prices are up almost 30% from a 12 months in the past.

The rise in thefts started slowly, coinciding with the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. They accelerated by final June as the primary wave of Covid lockdowns subsided and a second wave loomed. By November, month-to-month thefts have been operating 18% forward of 2019.

The most important soar was in Chicago, which noticed a 134% enhance in automobile thefts final 12 months, the NICB mentioned. The Chicago Police Division mentioned it additionally recorded a doubling within the variety of carjackings.

“This has been a 12 months that has offered quite a few challenges to regulation enforcement,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown mentioned in a statement in January saying the figures.

Numbers leveled off a bit as pandemic restrictions have subsided, however Chicago police data launched this month present thefts are nonetheless 9% larger than a 12 months in the past.

Elsewhere, thefts surged 68% in New York Metropolis and 50% in Washington, D.C., the NICB mentioned.

Criminals have lengthy understood how profitable trafficking in automobiles might be. One excessive instance of a distinct type of automobile crime, in 2014, concerned serial fraudster and web influencer T. R. Wright III, who portrayed himself as an arms seller and a world man of thriller.

“All of the Instagram images have been of this particular person with fancy vehicles, weapons, high-end garments, high-end automobiles, yachts, jets, touring everywhere in the world,” U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent James Reed advised “American Greed.” 

Wright, 36, admitted he took half in a conspiracy wherein he bought a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo with a salvage title for the cut price value of $76,000, intentionally crashed it right into a ditch, and picked up almost $170,000 in insurance coverage proceeds.

Wright pleaded responsible in 2018 to 2 conspiracy counts in what prosecutors mentioned was a wide-ranging scheme involving not simply automobiles, but in addition boats and airplanes. Wright, who’s serving a five-year sentence, claimed to “American Greed” that he introduced in much more cash than prosecutors contend.

“It relies on the way you do the mathematics, however when you needed to go on full losses, to illustrate someplace round 30 to 40 million {dollars},” Wright mentioned.

However a lot smaller-time crooks also can make a killing within the automobile market differently, particularly with immediately’s excessive costs. There’s a prepared marketplace for most vehicles and vehicles, in addition to their elements.

Whereas Wright bought his Lamborghini by means of an organization he managed, criminals are discovering it remarkably straightforward to easily steal automobiles. The NICB says greater than 10% of the automobiles stolen in 2019 — the final 12 months for which full figures can be found — had the keys left inside.

As a result of almost all circumstances result in an insurance coverage declare, each policyholder suffers within the type of larger premiums. That is why the NICB is urging automobile homeowners to guard themselves, particularly when crooks are so lively.

Listed below are some suggestions, a number of of that are widespread sense:

• Take your keys out of the ignition while you park the automobile, or in case your automobile has a distant key fob, hold it with you even in case you are simply exiting your automobile briefly.
• Lock your doorways and home windows, and park in a well-lighted space.
• Do not depart valuables or anything which may draw thieves’ curiosity inside your automobile. That features your storage door opener.
• Contemplate protecting an image of your automobile registration in your cellphone somewhat than leaving the precise doc in your glove compartment.
• Take into consideration putting in a automobile alarm in addition to a kill swap that may immobilize a stolen automobile.
• Contemplate getting a GPS tracker that may assist authorities discover your automobile.

Chances are you’ll not personal a six-figure Italian sports activities automobile, however absolutely anything you drive is a scorching commodity today.

See how social media star T.R. Wright III drove a brazen fraud scheme to fame and fortune, and listen to his personal phrases from jail. Watch an ALL NEW episode of “American Greed,” Monday, June 21, at 10 p.m. ET/PT, solely on CNBC.