No one understands the battle better than one detective who's part of a small team going up against the huge problem.

Detective Bill Webb is one of ten men from the BCSO and APD that make up the state's only Auto Theft Unit.

Eyewitness News 4 wanted to know what happens to those cars. About 75 percent of them never leave the metro area and are recovered within a month, often with a different license plate. A lot of them are stolen by people who just need some wheels to get around or by meth-heads who sell them for a quick buck.

And then there are the gang-bangers and the criminals.

“They use them for drive by shootings. They use them to commit homicides, armed robberies, bank robberies, everything all the way down to shoplifting,” Webb said.

Since 99 percent of the parts have no serial numbers, thieves hit the black market to make a buck.

So what about the stolen cars that don't turn up?

“It's that 20 to 25 percent we're not recovering that the auto theft investigators are really concerned with,” Webb said.

Webb says organized crime, especially the Mexican drug cartels, including Los Zetas which operates in New Mexico, are putting in personal orders that their gangsters or meth-heads carry out.

Someone in a cartel may want a maroon colored Ford F-350 King Ranch edition, it's their task to come and find it and take it,” Webb said.

The cartels are also ordering vehicles to be used in their business.

Webb says if it's a pickup truck, an SUV or a minivan, it's probably heading south of the border, sometimes with money or guns.

Webb says that part is a breeze because most vehicles don't get checked. He says within days a lot of those vehicles are coming back into the U.S., but he says this time they are full of drugs or illegal immigrants.

Authorites say Japanese cars tend to be thieves’ favorites, especially Hondas and Acuras, but they say Saturns are gaining popularity among thieves.

So what happens to the thieves when they catch them? Webb says they're often in and out of jail in no time because stealing a car is not considered a violent crime.

The maximum sentence for being caught with a stolen car is 18 months in jail. The maximum sentence for stealing a car is 3 years in jail.