INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana State Police in Marion County has recovered hundreds of stolen cars this year and one squad of 13 troopers is responsible for nearly 60% of those. News 8 first reported on the recovery effort by ISP on Tuesday, now, Sergeant John Perrine from State Police is talking about their efforts.

ISP said Washington Street on the west side of Indianapolis is one of the areas where they’ve had the most success finding stolen cars.

“This is new territory for us. This is a significant increase to anything we’ve ever had before,” Perrine said.

State police are identifying the stolen cars with the help of cameras on highways and on city streets. Those cameras send an alert when a reported stolen car goes by.

“These troopers have gotten really good at strategically putting themselves, as a team, in certain areas so they can intercept that car the moment they get the notification instead of trying to chase it through the city,” Perrine said.

The troopers on the Night Shift B Squad are responsible for 192 of the 336 recovered stolen cars so far this year. Their technique is aimed at being as safe as possible.

“We do know that stolen vehicles do lead to a lot of pursuits, but if we can put troopers in the right positions at the right times, when those stolen vehicles hit we can deescalate that pursuit with stop sticks or by boxing them in before it even gets to that point,” he said.

It’s not just about getting someone’s stolen car back to the rightful owner.

“They’re able to connect that to more serious crimes, to other crime rings, and it’s kind of an inner woven web of crime that they’re getting themselves in to,” Perrine said. “Simply by finding these stolen cars, we’re finding illegal guns, drugs, narcotics. We’re finding ties to other crimes, to robberies, to more violent crimes.”

Some of the cars troopers are recovering are ones where someone left the car running, or the keys inside, but the squad is also catching more sophisticated car thieves who are duplicating key fobs and spoofing VIN numbers.

State police said they’re analyzing the successes of this one specific squad to see if their techniques can be used in other parts of the state.

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