CAR THIEF TELLS OF METH-FUELLED BINGES

Says He Stole Up To 25 Cars A Night 'For The Hell Of
It'

At 15, Darren tried methamphetamine for the first time.

He was a full-fledged addict by the time he was 17, when another "meth
head" taught him how to steal cars to support his habit.

By 22, he was an accomplished car thief, with hundreds of stolen
vehicles and even more break-ins to his credit.

Then, last July, he stole a bait car in Surrey.

He was, he recalls, a little suspicious about the small car alone in
the parking lot that morning.

But he was also into his ninth day without sleep, on a meth-fuelled
binge and "high as hell."

The video from the bait car shows a gaunt, jittery Darren, yelling
"they bait carred my ass" as pursuing police cut the power to the
vehicle by remote control.

In a panic, Darren dove out of the still-moving car, leaving it to
crash into a schoolyard fence.

On Wednesday, he saw the tape for the first time, wincing and laughing
with embarrassment.

"Man, I look like a retard," he said.

"What the hell am I doing?"

He has just finished serving five months of a six-month jail sentence
for stealing the car in the video and has managed to kick his drug
habit.

"I'm not going to be like that any more," he said.

In the videotaped interview, released Thursday by Cpl. Tim Shields of
the Surrey-based Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team
(IMPACT), Darren (whose last name was not released) said he was
addicted to meth and to auto theft.

"I've stolen up to 25 cars a night just for the hell of it," he
said.

"I was never satisfied."

He usually used the cars as getaway vehicles while he was breaking
into apartment building storage lockers in Surrey, Coquitlam,
Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster.

"Everyone I know who steals cars is whacked out on meth," he said. "If
they're not in a recovery house, they should be in jail."

IMPACT's Cpl. Shields said Darren's story is all too
typical.

Most car thieves in the Lower Mainland are in their 20s and stealing
vehicles to commit other crimes.

Shields said the B.C. bait car program, now the largest in North
America, is producing a substantial drop in car thefts and longer
sentences for crooks caught in its web.

"We are finding that car thieves are getting stiffer sentences when a
bait car (video) is involved," Shields said.