An international police operation aimed at combatting vehicle crime in West Africa has successfully recovered approximately 150 stolen vehicles and seized over 75 others.
The operation, codenamed ‘Safe Wheels,’ was coordinated by INTERPOL and involved national law enforcement agencies from 12 West African countries.
Conducted over two weeks in March 2025, the operation initiated 18 new investigations and uncovered the activities of two organized crime groups.
Law enforcement officials from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo set up an average of 46 checkpoints each day, inspecting a total of 12,600 vehicles.
The majority of the stolen vehicles identified through INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicle (SMV) database originated from Canada. Additional reports indicated that many of these vehicles had also been stolen in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
INTERPOL’s SMV database enables police in its 196 member countries to quickly verify whether a suspicious vehicle has been reported stolen. In 2024 alone, approximately 270,000 vehicles were identified as stolen globally through this system.