In the first six months of operation, the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement (WAVE) Task Force has succeeded in recovering more than $1.4 million in stolen vehicles in the Washington metropolitan area. The recovery of a stolen tow truck in mid-September put the team over the $1 million mark.

The WAVE Team was formed in April, 2000, when supervisors from the auto theft units of the Metropolitan Police Department, the Montgomery County Police Department , the Maryland State Police , the Fairfax County Police Department , and the FBI 's Washington Field Office came together to address the rising auto theft problem in this area. Studies have shown that the Washington region has the highest auto theft rate per capita in the nation and the officials from these agencies developed a plan to implement a regional auto theft task force to address this problem. As a a result, this task force is the first of its kind to prosecute its cases at the local level, depending on where the apprehension occurred.

The team deployed for the first time on April 24, 2000, and since that time, in addition to the recovery of 113 vehicles, and $1,423,130 in stolen property, they have arrested 103 subjects, and seized four firearms. Among those arrested were two suspects wanted for carjacking robberies, two suspects wanted for other robberies, one homicide suspect, two suspects wanted for attempted murder, two suspects wanted for assault, one suspect wanted for counterfeiting currency, and six suspects wanted for drug possession.

These arrests are in keeping with the Task Force vision that the enforcement of auto theft offenses will have a collateral effect on other crimes as well, since stolen vehicles are crime enablers, providing transportation for criminals in the commission of crime, for example, bank robberies and drug transactions.

The WAVE Task Force is funded by grants which were available for some of the agency participants and contributions from the automotive insurance industry.