That's no surprise to Guillermo Cruz, who has bought two new cars this year: the first after his original car was stolen, and the second three months later after two armed men pointed guns at him, got in and drove off with Cruz inside.

"They dropped me off in the street and I thought they had already left, and I went back" to where they had taken it, he said.

"And still they hadn't left; they were inside the car. And one man said to the other, 'Let's shoot him because he's becoming annoying.' "

According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions, the capital of Mexico City is a favorite site for car thieves to work.

"If we talk about data from the federal district, we can say that we have 16,000 automobiles stolen, an increase of 10 percent from October 2007 to September 2008," said Recaredo Arias, a spokesman for the association.

He said drug traffickers have contributed to the increase by pushing other bands of criminals into new lines of business.

"Perhaps they are taking up so much space from the point of view of the sources of income as from the point of view of supply and distribution of drugs to these bands and, as a result, the bands are looking for other types of crimes," he speculated.

Authorities say they are making efforts to fight the crime, though some observers predict that the incidence of car theft will rise further as the world economic crisis worsens.

CNN