Li Jinquan and nearly 150 other delighted Beijing residents collected the keys of their stolen motor vehicles from police officers at the Beijing Workers' Stadium on Saturday.

Grinning from ear to ear, middle-aged Li trotted to his sedan placed in rows with 145 others at the stadium square. After a nearly half a year apart, Li and his car were reunited as he once again sat in the driver's seat.

The 146 cars, returned to their owners over the weekend, were just part of a total of 1,071 that the Beijing police have recovered this year, said Yang Yaling, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security.

Yang said her bureau has cracked 528 cases of car theft since the beginning of this year, among which 438 suspects were involved.

Many of these cases can be linked to organized criminal gangs, Yang said.

One example cited was of a five-member gang smashed in June, suspected of stealing 15 automobiles over the past year, most of which were Honda sedans.

Each of the stolen cars was usually sold at a price of between 70,000 and 80,000 (US$8,630-9,860). To date, eight of the 15 in this case have been recovered.

Another case involves a four-member gang, with three stealing cars and one fencing the stolen vehicles.

Yet another investigation discovered that gangsters, driving a Santana, would intentionally bump into Audi sedans, then they would beat the driver into unconsciousness before making off with the victim's car.

The gang robbed seven Audi sedans, all of which have now been recovered.

Yang Jianguo, deputy chief of the Criminal Investigation Division of the bureau, said car thieves and robbers could now quickly dispose of vehicles through underground sales networks, which increased the difficulty of solving such cases.

"The quickest needs only a couple of hours from stealing a car to selling it," said Yang Jianguo.

"The time for stealing a car has also been shortened significantly," Yang added. "A skilled thief can easily hotwire a car that is not armed with special burglar-proof devices, and drive it away within four to five minutes."

In one case, a man from north China's Shanxi Province was suspected of stealing 24 high-grade cars with a set of self-made keys and car ignition devices. Twelve of the stolen cars have been recovered.

The deputy chief said auto theft cases have been on the rise in the last few years. He advised car owners to park their vehicles in safe places, especially overnight. He also encouraged the installation of alarms.

(China Daily August 1, 2005)