Chief Miguel “Mike” Rodriguez, chair of the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority and Laredo police chief, told the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles board on Sept. 18 that expanded grant funding, regional training and new data tools have helped reduce catalytic-converter thefts and improve law enforcement coordination across the state.

Rodriguez said MVCPA’s work has emphasized auto theft, burglarized vehicles and catalytic-converter thefts as “gateway” crimes and described a rapid increase in grant awards and technology deployments since 2024. “This is our mission statement. All Texans are free from harm and loss caused by motor vehicle crime,” he said.

Why it matters: MVCPA grants, training and new data-sharing tools are intended to give local task forces the capacity to identify organized theft operations, arrest suspects, and recover vehicles before stolen parts or the vehicles cross jurisdictional lines. MVCPA’s approach aims to reduce costs to victims and limit escalation from property crimes to more serious offenses.

What MVCPA reported

- Funding and grants: Rodriguez said the insurance-fee funding mechanism that supports MVCPA has grown over recent years; he described collections in 2024 and said the authority received an appropriation of $24 million to address catalytic-converter thefts. He said the authority expanded its grant program from 26 grants in 2023 to 32 in 2024 and to 83 in 2025 for auto-theft work, with additional grants planned.

- Activity and outcomes: Rodriguez gave statewide counts and trends, saying MVCPA tracked about 103,465 motor-vehicle thefts and 162,311 vehicle burglaries and parts thefts in 2024 (figures he attributed to MVCPA statistics). He said catalytic converter thefts dropped “drastically” after concentrated funding and task-force operations but did not give a precise statewide percentage decline during the presentation.

- Technology and “Texas grid”: Rodriguez described an effort to create a statewide “Texas grid” of data feeds (he named a camera/analytics vendor, Flock) that would let investigators follow stolen vehicles’ likely paths across municipal and highway cameras. “Right now, when they steal a car in Houston and it gets to the border in Laredo, we don't know what path they took,” he said. He said the grid would provide real-time visibility in more than 100 jurisdictions that have or will have the technology.

- Training and conferences: Rodriguez described MVCPA’s revived conference and regional training program, saying the authority now delivers basic and advanced auto-theft investigative training in multiple Texas cities and that attendance has risen (he said about 444 officers attended the recent conference and forecast more than 600 in the next year).

- Cases and enforcement: Rodriguez showed examples of organized, transnational auto-theft investigations, including seizures of high-value stolen vehicles and labor organized by criminal networks. He said some stolen Texas vehicles are later recovered in Mexico, sometimes modified and used by cartel groups. “We have to get smarter than them,” he said, describing cross-border casework and information-sharing with U.S. Customs and Mexican authorities.

Board questions and discussion

Board members praised MVCPA’s work and asked for follow-up details. Member Darren Schlosser, a former MVCPA task-force member, called recent leadership and the July training “phenomenal.” Member Gilman, who said he is a car dealer in Harlingen and San Benito, asked MVCPA to provide dealer outreach and training; Rodriguez said he would coordinate with dealer associations. Member Stacy Grama asked whether MVCPA could provide comparative data on catalytic-converter thefts; Rodriguez said staff would send board members the relevant data. Member Graham asked whether smaller, rural departments can access grants; Rodriguez said the authority prioritizes smaller jurisdictions and has expanded awards for them.

Requests to the board

Rodriguez asked the board to approve MVCPA plans to fund analysts who would work with the Department of Public Safety fusion center to deliver near-real-time intelligence to jurisdictions that adopt the new camera/analytics tools. “We have the funding. We need to push this structure so that we can provide DPS with the additional help to get that real-time information to our jurisdictions,” he said.

Context and limitations

Rodriguez attributed the declines in some theft categories to MVCPA-funded task forces, training and technology. He described large-scale organized theft operations and cross-border criminal networks. He did not provide a formal, audited set of statewide numbers in the meeting; where specific counts or dollar figures were supplied, the article attributes them to Rodriguez and MVCPA.

What’s next

Rodriguez said MVCPA will continue to expand grants and training, pursue the Texas grid deployments and coordinate with DPS on real-time information sharing. Board members urged MVCPA to share the theft- and grant-trend data with the board and with dealer associations to improve prevention and dealer cooperation.

Ending

Rodriguez closed by thanking the board for support and saying the authority remained “relentless” in efforts to reduce auto-theft and catalytic-converter theft statewide.