Colonel Yury Lyashev, deputy head of the ministry's crime investigation department, said at a press conference that police had detained 29,000 people suspected of organized car theft in 1993.
About 4,500 of them were sentenced to imprisonment, but only 280 got more than three years. The remaining 84 percent were freed, Lyashev said.
Most detainees get off on joyriding rather than car-theft charges, he said
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