International Car Theft Ring Busted, More Than Two Dozen Charged

More than two dozen people have been arrested in a $2.3 million luxury car theft ring that shipped vehicles out of the country to overseas buyers.  The Pennsylvania Attorney General and State Police say the 26 suspects from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New York were responsible for the thefts of at least 57 vehicles in the Philadelphia and Newark New Jersey areas. The investigation was known as “Operation Wheels of Fortune.”

While many cars were taken from dealerships, at least 17 were taken in carjackings or other violent incidents. Nils Frederiksen, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office says the investigation is ongoing.  He says there’s a booming international business and a demand for these types of vehicles and someone will try to figure out how to make money on that.

Frederiksen says luxury vehicles and SUVs would often sell for 25 to 30% more in West Africa than they would in the United States.  Some of the stolen vehicles were recovered at the docks where they were to be loaded on shipping containers bound for West Africa.

Frederiksen says part of the operation involved an organized effort to steal cars from dealerships in the Philadelphia area.  The thieves would then contact a broker, or middle man, to deal the cars. He says the buyers were a group of individuals from Philadelphia and New York would were making arrangements to ship cars quickly out of the country.

Frederiksen says they intercepted what was believed to be an organized network of thieves, brokered middle men and a group of individuals looking for cars to ship overseas.  He says they don’t believe these were the only people doing this.