MEXICO City More than 26,000 cars were stolen in Mexico from January to July, bringing the average number of car thefts so far this year to 124 a day, the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutes (AMIS) said on Thursday. AMIS head Tomas de la Ruiz told reporters that car thefts in the first seven months of the year rose 8.3 percent from the same period of 1999 to 26,088. Of that, 40.8 percent were recovered.
AMIS technical director Enrique Olmedo said that 53 percent of car thefts occurred in Mexico City, the sprawling capital that is the heart of an urban area of about 20 million people.
(Reuter)