I spent a snowy Monday morning with members of the Regional Auto Theft Task Force. Comprised by police officers from Baltimore City and County, they are responsible for catching car thieves, investigating insurance fraud and just about anything else connected between cars and crime.

They do have some neat tools. With cameras on top of their window-tinted SUVS, they can scan license plates -- each cop can do about 3,000 a day -- and get an instant alert if one comes back stolen. Officer Mark Bucsok showed me can examine the plates on cars driving by on roads or parked on streets or in lots.

Click here for a look at cars that are most popluar to steal.

It takes the guess work out such work. Before, officers Like Bucsok had to either call in a suspicious plat number to a dispatcher or type into a portable computer in his police car. Now, it's all done for him. And while in the past Bucsok would only check cars he knew topped the list of stolen cars, now he can check everything. "I'm getting hits on cars I never would have thought to be stolen," he told me.

On Monday, the officers hit Northwest Baltimore around Liberty Heights Avenue and Reisterstown Road. It was a slow day -- a parade and snow seeme to keep traffic light -- and in a sign of a bad economy, even lots used to store stolen cars and parts were empty.

Since the task force began in 1995, here is some of what they've done:

Arrests
Drugs: 345
Carjacking: 228
Handgun possession: 115
Burglary: 119
Robbery: 80
Attempted murder: 53
Insurance fraud: 81
Murder: 13
Kidnapping: 8
Rape: 8
Counterfeiting: 2

Below are some more stats: