Spare car parts stolen A 1,000 billion business ROME - Sales on the Italian market of counterfeit or stolen spare parts for automobiles and motorbikes produce an estimated annual turnover of 1,000 billion lire. Moreover, this activity is also spreading to the motorcycle market, according to the first results of an investigation carried out by the research section of " Tomponzi Investigations", following an enquiry promoted by a large foreign automobile manufacturer. This enquire was prompted by a series of "strange events" which occurred on the German market at the outset of last spring. Among these events, which also have made a strong impact on Italy, a sharp decrease in mechanical and electric replacements exports, stolen lots of spare parts, vanishing cars were reported. "Along with the illegal spare parts market- declares Miriam Tomponzi, general director of Tomponzi Investigations, that conducted the search on the market of stolen spare parts- we have found out the existence of several organizations involved in the sale of vehicles coming from the so-called parallel market and high-powered automobiles, stolen just in Germany and in Northern Europe."