If you are planning a car trip to Quebec this summer, and you own a fancy sport-utility vehicle, soyez prudent — be careful.

The theft of American-owned vehicles in Montreal and Quebec City is a big problem, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. And the thieves are not teenage joy riders; sophisticated organized gangs are involved, many with international connections. Some of the vehicles are chopped for parts, but most are either exported in containers or recycled back into the United States with new Vehicle Identification Numbers.

"U.S. registered vehicles stolen in Quebec and Montreal are not being recovered at the same rate as vehicles stolen here," said Heidi Jordan, senior special agent for the NICB in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

She said the recovery rate was about 67 percent in the United States compared with 2 percent in Canada. "The concern here is that many of these vehicles are being exported or are being revinned and recirculated back into the U.S.," she said.

In fact, many are shipped out on the day they are stolen, according to a report prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The report, which was updated in 2005, said the gangs, "motivated by the low risk, huge profits and light penalties associated with auto theft, are operating virtual stolen car pipelines."

Why Quebec? "Tourism," says Jordan. "The victims are vacationing and I don't think that the problem of U.S. vehicles stolen in that area has grabbed the attention of the law enforcement in that area."

Inspector Yves Riopel, who heads the Montreal Police Department's organized crime division, disagreed. He said the overall recovery rate for stolen vehicles in Montreal was 53.7 percent last year, adding that American vehicles per se are not being targeted. "The thieves are not targeting license plates but the vehicles," he said, adding that many stolen vehicles belong to visitors from Ontario as well as to Quebecers themselves.

Riopel said the Montreal Police Department had decentralized its organized crime unit to focus on the problem and was working with key areas where theft has been a problem — such as the La Ronde/Six Flags amusement park, the Trudeau-Montreal and Mirabel-Montreal International Airports and downtown hotels. "Montreal is one of the safest cities in North America, and that's important to us," he said.