Stolen Cars. Группа авторов

Stolen Cars - Группа авторов


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to clandestine warehouse Vehicle is “chopped up” in warehouse and parts of commercial interest repackaged for sale Parts loaded onto truck in warehouse, sent to Belém, Pará state; 3,500 km away Invoice from similar Strada “warms up” other stolen parts on avenue known for illegal dismantling in São Paulo Hyundai HB20 2014 João Insured No tracker 11 a.m. – Theft in Osasco, West Zone of São Paulo Vehicle “cools down” for two days in same neighborhood “Hunters” from insurer Alvorada Seguros retrieve vehicle by making rounds in neighborhood, airbag popped to justify not returning vehicle Vehicle goes to Car Auction Corp auctioneer on Tuesday. Purchased by a small businessman from the interior of Rio de Janeiro and resold as a second-hand car Parts extracted from the car in the auction yard circulate in the informal market; resale of beaten-up cars takes place online; urban areas become specialized Fiat Palio 2011 Sérgio, No insurance 5 p.m. – Armed robbery in Ferraz de Vasconcelos, municipality in São Paulo Metropolitan Region Taken to a housing project in Cidade Tiradentes, owner appeals to PCC but is turned down as he cannot cite any violation of the unwritten code of the criminal world, later files report with police Dismantled haphazardly in front of housing project, some parts stay in the vehicle, others taken away More than a week later police officer finds car picked clean in Cidade Tiradentes public housing project, calls owner and asks him to remove it from the street as required by law Shell stays at Sergio’s house, he thinks of possible destinations; stolen parts sold on Mercado Livre (online sales platform) Owner attempts to find parts in the illegal chop-shops so as to reassemble vehicle but gives up due to cost, student buys one of the doors after a car crash. Shell appears on Tietê river in dry season. Ford Ka 2018 Diego Insured, rented by Uber driver 8:40 p.m. – Armed robbery Av. Sapopemba, East Zone of São Paulo Researchers follow vehicle’s arrival in favela to sound of funk music amid clouds of marijuana smoke Circulates unregistered in Sapopemba for three months thanks to absence of any police inspection and tolerance on the part of the community Boys joy-riding outside the favela are seen by police, flee, crash vehicle, abandon scene, police contact insurance company Horizonte Seguros, which sends vehicle to Rodrigues Paiva auctioneer Maurício wins Ford Ka at auction through professional buyer Maurício relabels and sells pieces as Stratus part, one of the thieves is killed by police a few months later

      We talked at length, as a team and with our research subjects about what would be the most typical journey and therefore the most plausible for us to follow. When reliable quantitative data were available, they provided the fundamental criteria for the construction of our journeys. If insurance companies recover many more cars in São Paulo than the police do, if car thieves are young people in general from the favelas, or if the dismantlers have very heterogeneous profiles, then these were characteristics to be reconstructed during our journeys. If the police kill many car thieves in São Paulo, but if one thief is killed for every several hundred thefts or robberies, we decided that none of our five cases would end with a dead criminal – although from what we’ve seen empirically, the phenomenon should be discussed in the book. And so it was with each decision regarding the journeys presented, in an extensive analytical work over the course of more than a year. Many tests, with different versions of the journeys, led us to the structure that we present here, guided by the criteria of plausibility and representativeness.

      The sheer vastness of the universe that we researched means that typical journeys do not mean major routes. There are many other plausible, possible, and empirically verified journeys for stolen cars and for supply chains in these markets that we have not reconstructed here. Our set of five cars affords us an overview of the enormous diversity of illegal markets and their connections with their legal equivalents. What’s more, the reconstruction of these journeys, based on the principles of narrative analysis, introduces readers to the same sociological knowledge that we researchers have access to. Empirical fragments and analytical debates lead us to broader theoretical questions underpinned by solid foundations.

      A Collective Research Team

      A team of 11 ethnographers contributed to the mixed-method research of this book, conducted between 2015 and 2019. During our fieldwork we visited places from favela bars to the financial offices of large automotive companies; we conducted research in small cities, border regions, consulates, small roads where vehicles, drugs, and weapons are transported, police intelligence centers, and large insurance companies. We conducted interviews in public agencies of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, as well as religious institutions and criminal groups. We heard the testimony of thieves, Federal Police, Border Patrol Officers, CEOs, and Congressmen. We complemented our ethnographic research and journeys with analysis of secondary quantitative data produced by governments and insurers, as well as official documents, debates around changes in legislation, and so on.

      We also produced primary quantitative data, especially used in Chapters 2 and 4. Young and experienced researchers worked as a team, in groups, in pairs, or individually during fieldwork, and collectively during data analysis, reviewing literature and writing chapter plans and summaries. Each one read and discussed every chapter during our workshops and the entire draft during its final stages, always sharing their critical viewpoints. We learned from one another, we laughed, fought, worked hard, and were at times frustrated with the limits imposed on parts of our research, but in the end we became much closer to one another.

      The list of bibliographical references was also compiled collectively, organized by theme using organizational software. We also obtained many tables of primary quantitative data – especially regarding police auctions and homicides linked to vehicle theft – and many, many written and video press reports collected systematically throughout the research process. This material makes up thousands of pages. The densest descriptions of places, situations, people, objects and, especially, prices make up this material. The general guidelines set down for the field ethnographers in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Cuiabá, Campos Verdes, Foz do Iguaçu, San Estéban, Santos, São Carlos, Berlin, London, Paris, and elsewhere was always to focus on the two questions that guided our investigation: “how does it work?” and “how much does it cost?” How can a stolen car be sold on the legal market? How is it made legal again? What does


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