Badea AbuAl-Naja Saudi Gazette MAKKAH — After working secretly for a long time, a number of illegal workshops in Makkah have decided to go public and are now operating without any fear of the police. They work from early morning until Asr prayer and some of them will open again after Maghreb prayer to continue working until close to midnight. The random workshops have been a favorable destination for criminals to change the looks of their cars so they are not easily recognized by the police. In addition to fixing the cars and changing their colors, these workshops also sell cheap stolen spare parts. The workshops are entirely manned by illegal expatriates who do not bother to rent places for their workshops but carry out their work on roads inside residential areas. Most of these illegal workshops have found shelter in the Al-Mansour, Al-Rusaifah and Harat Al-Yemen districts. The school summer vacation and the holy month of Ramadan represent a rare opportunity for these workshops to obtain stolen spare parts. The pilgrims and visitors come to Makkah in large numbers during Ramadan and their cars are targets for thieves who sell their stolen parts to illegal businesses. Saudi Gazette made a field tour of these workshops located on narrow streets and alleys in Al-Mansour district only to find that they work in broad daylight without any fear of concerned authorities. Saudi Gazette told one of the mechanics that a friend had hit a pedestrian with his Japanese car and fled and now he wanted to change the vehicle's color. He said: "No problem. Let your friend bring his car late in the night to a courtyard near the workshop, pay SR7,000 and come again to receive it after three days.” This demonstrates that anyone who commits a crime can easily change the exterior of his car, making it harder for the police to detect them. The legal workshops will never do anything like this. If you want to repair your car or change its color they will ask you to bring a special permit from the traffic police, which will only grant the repair permits after making sure that the car or the driver is not wanted in connection with any criminal offense. Makkah residents are deeply worried by the existence of these illegal workshops in the holy city. They believe that they are the reason behind numerous car thefts in Makkah. "The thieves concentrate their activities in the car parking lots for pilgrims and visitors," said Hussain Bin Abbas, a Saudi. He said police investigations proved beyond doubt that the main customers of car thieves are illegal workshops. Abdul Khaliq Al-Fahmi, another Saudi, said the thieves were so daring that they would steal cars impounded at police stations in connection with traffic violations or criminal acts. "The thieves, mostly of African origin, will steal the tires, accessories, cassette recorders, engines and other car parts to sell to their countrymen in the illegal workshops," he said. Jameel Hamza recalled that the air conditioner of his four-wheel-drive car was not working properly so he took it for repair at one of the legal workshops, where he was told that the AC needed a new compressor that would cost more than SR3,000. "A friend of mine advised me to go to an illegal workshop where I paid SR500 for the compressor and my AC is now working perfectly," he said. Hamza said he asked the workshop owner why his price was cheap and was told that the part was stolen.
