When his plane touched down at Montreal's international airport, David LaRoche collected h

is luggage and headed for the airport parking garage, where he left his brand-new car-three weeks earlier. But the car wasn't there. LaRoche found a police officer, who gave him the bad news:his Audi A6 most likely had been absorbed into a vast black car market some- where in Eastern Europe of Africa.

LaRoche, who flies out of Montreal because it is the closest major airport to his northern Vermont home, is not alone. Countless U. S. travelers use Montreal's airport because of its convenient location and competitive prices, which it promotes in radio ads in New Eng-land. Not surprisingly, the ads don't mention that more than 200 cars are stolen every year from the airport's parking lots.

Professional thieves search the airport's long-term parking garages for cars that are relatively free of dust and have U. S. license plates—a lack of dust means that a car was parked recently, and Americans often travel for weeks on end. Says a Canadian car-theft investigator: "That gives the bad guys a lot of time to do whatever they want with the car."

What they do, typically, is take the stolen cars to Montreal's harbor, wheree they are concealed inside huge containers to be taken overseas. In little more than a week, the cars are on the street in Russia or countries in Africa of Asia. Police assert that Canada's most powerful car-theft rings are controlled by Russian crime organizations.

Airport officials downplay the problem. "You have to put things in perspective... when you have so many cars parked at your airport every year," says Montreal's director of airport protection. "It's not a major problem. "But the Montreal airport's car-theft problem—police recorded 220 stolen cars last year—is far worse than other international airports in North America. Last year, for example, only 65 cars were stolen from parking lots at Los Angeles's airport; Boston's Logan airport had only four reported thefts. So now David La- Roche will head to Logan, his next-closest major airport. It's a longer drive, but that's OK if it saves his new car.

Many American travelers use Montreal international airport because______.

A．it offers good passenger service

B．it provides free parking lots

C．it is near and inexpensive

D．it is widely advertised