Vehicle theft has been on the rise the past few years in the U.S. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), 1,020,729 cars were reported stolen in 2023—the largest number on record. With these staggeringly high numbers, highway traffic enforcement organizations are constantly looking for new and improved strategies to prevent and recover these stolen vehicles.

One such agency—the California Highway Patrol (CHP)—has successfully developed a program to investigate and recover stolen vehicles using the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS), partnering with the NICB and other private sector partners to get the job done. Dubbed the Northern California Foreign Export Recovery Team (No. FEAR), the program was honored with AAMVA’s 2024 Fraud Prevention and Detection: NMVTIS Enforcement Award, recognizing CHP’s dedication to stopping thieves and fraudsters in their tracks.

No. FEAR Genesis

The No. FEAR program was born out of a need to combat economic vehicle theft, says Sgt. Kathleen Hayes, supervisor for CHP’s No. FEAR Team. “The FEAR Team was established following the enactment of [California State] Senate Bill 1743,” she says.

Colloquially known as the California Motor Vehicle Prevention Act, provisions in the legislation created two FEAR teams (one in Northern California, one in Southern) and required insurance companies to pay $1 per policy to fund the teams’ operations.

Positive Results

In its infancy, the No. FEAR team operated mainly at ports to prevent the direct export of stolen vehicles. “VIN [number] switching or cloning has increased significantly in recent years,” Hayes says, which has led to a slight priority shake-up. “They’re primarily high-end vehicles, and our goal is to recover them before they’re stripped [for parts] or sold off.”

“We’re able to target [those vehicles] and get them back to their rightful owners, which has been very rewarding for me and my team.”

Sgt. Kathleen Hayes
Supervisor for CHP’s No. FEAR Team

Hayes says the program has been extremely successful, with her team being able to catch vehicles even after a complete VIN switch with fraudulent paperwork. “We’re able to target [those vehicles] and get them back to their rightful owners, which has been very rewarding for me and my team.”

Grateful Appreciation

Winning AAMVA’s 2024 Fraud Prevention and Detection: NMVTIS Enforcement Award has given the program good exposure and recognition. “We are doing great work,” she says. “I only have five team members, so working together with allied partners and other jurisdictions is essential. If my five [team members] partner with one agency of 150 and another of 350, we can really make an impact.”

For jurisdictions that may want to implement a similar program, Hayes says her team does a great job networking and teaching courses on investigating and recovering stolen vehicles. “We do a great deal of instructing and teaching what we know,” she says. “[We teach] how to improve your program, and then work to provide all the information we have in our databases. We want to help everybody get to the same place to work together to fight this battle.