An international police operation targeting vehicle crime in West Africa has led to the detection of approximately 150 stolen vehicles and the seizure of more than 75 vehicles.
Coordinated by INTERPOL and carried out by national law enforcement agencies in 12 West African countries, the operation – codenamed ‘Safe Wheels’ – also initiated 18 new investigations and uncovered the involvement of two organized crime groups.
During the two-week operation in March 2025, law enforcement in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo established an average of 46 checkpoints each day to inspect a total of 12,600 vehicles.
Most of the stolen vehicles detected through INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicle (SMV) database were trafficked from Canada, while many had also been reported stolen in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicle database allows police in the Organization’s 196 member countries to run a check against a suspicious vehicle and find out instantly whether it has been reported as stolen.
In 2024, around 270,000 vehicles were identified as stolen globally through the SMV database.
