Cairo streets (Photo: Reuters)
General Abdel Fatah Osman, an assistant to the director of public security at the ministry of interior, revealed that 11,000 vehicles have been stolen off streets since the outbreak of the January 25th revolution.
Osman did not provide any figures on the numbers of vehicles that were stolen in years before the outbreak of the January revolution.
The number of vehicles that run on Egyptian streets reached 6.5 million in 2011 up from 5.85 million in 2010, a 12.5 per cent increase. This puts the figure for the percentage of stolen vehicles at a low 0.17 per cent of the total number of cars in the country.
Speaking last night to Moatez El Demerdash on the New Egypt talk show on Al-Hayat2 TV, Osman said that the ministry was able to track down and recover 3,000 cars in the last few months.
He added that the police is searching for a number of notorious car thieves and car-jackers such as a man by the name of ‘The desert Bulbul’ who is known for his utter boldness in action.
However, Osman concluded that the ministry faces an uphill battle in recovering vehicles due to the partial breakdown in security following January.
El Demerdash, a one-time popular public TV anchor who turned 'satellite' in recent years has been running a special file on rising car theft on his program.
Osman did not provide any figures on the numbers of vehicles that were stolen in years before the outbreak of the January revolution.
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