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---
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Tag: ["🚔", "🇺🇸", "🚙", "💸"]
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Date: 2025-02-16
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DocType: "WebClipping"
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Hierarchy:
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TimeStamp: 2025-02-16
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Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-teen-carjacking-gangs-gta/
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location:
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CollapseMetaTable: true
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---
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Parent:: [[@News|News]]
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Read:: 🟥
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---
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```button
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name Save
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type command
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action Save current file
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id Save
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```
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^button-TeenageCarjackingGangsPlayaReal-LifeGameofGrandTheftAutoNSave
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# Teenage Carjacking Gangs Play a Real-Life Game of ‘Grand Theft Auto’
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When a car is stolen in the US, there’s a good chance that the thief is a teenager (who may think life is a lot like a video game) and that the vehicle will end up in western Africa.
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February 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM EST
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Illustration by Callum Rowland
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When a car is stolen in the US, there’s a good chance that the thief is a teenager, and that the vehicle will end up in western Africa.
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The parking garage on Florida Avenue in Washington, DC, was an ideal place to stash the carjacked Mercedes-Benz. And the stolen BMW. And the purloined Dodge Challenger. Residents of the apartment complex wheeled high-end models down into the garage all hours of the day; why would anyone notice a couple of extra luxury cars?
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The stolen-car business was so robust in Washington in 2023 that the Florida Avenue garage doubled as a clandestine showroom. Buyers and sellers congregated to receive incoming vehicles, then inspected the cars and quickly sealed the deal. Automobiles not sold within hours of the initial heist were listed on Instagram and shown by appointment. This business had dependable suppliers and repeat customers. Text messages intercepted by law enforcement captured buyers placing orders for specific makes and models. One 18-year-old delivering stolen vehicles to the garage executed six carjackings in a week. He left a half-dozen victims terrified and one shot dead.
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The hustle and bustle at the Florida Avenue showroom drew the attention of the DC Metropolitan Police Department, whose officers infiltrated the operation. Posing as middlemen, they organized a takedown in late summer 2023, and four men were charged with operating a carjacking racket. Those suspects, currently jailed and awaiting trial, represent a tiny fraction of the vast car-theft underworld that led to the robbery of 1,020,729 cars in the US in 2023, the [latest annual figure](https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/vehicle-thefts-surge-nationwide-2023 "Vehicle Thefts Surge Nationwide in 2023 | National Insurance Crime Bureau") from the nonprofit National Insurance Crime Bureau. This continued an unwelcome reversal: Car theft had been falling steadily since peaking in 1991. Then came the pandemic. Since early 2020, auto thefts have increased by about 30%. Statistics for 2024 are incomplete, but partial state-level results suggest that law enforcement campaigns to combat violent carjackings led to a fall in thefts last year.
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Tens of thousands of shipping containers leave East Coast ports every day. Tucked into some are stolen cars. Photographer: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek
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A wall of goods hiding a stolen car in a container at New Jersey’s Elizabeth Marine Terminal. Sophisticated thieves can get four cars into a 40-foot container. Photographer: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek
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An officer looks for a vehicle identification number on a recovered car. Thieves have removed the one in the primary spot. Photographer: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek
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About 10% of the cars stolen in the US today are smuggled overseas, according to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which runs a New Jersey-based task force that integrates the efforts of local and federal law enforcement and coordinates crackdowns up and down the East Coast. Nowhere is international stolen-car traffic more robust than in the trade from the eastern US to ports in West Africa. With long-established routes hauling millions of shipping containers each month, car thieves have become bold in their efforts to slip stolen vehicles into this flow of legitimate commerce.
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Used-car brokers in West Africa know what models their customers will snap up, so they call US-based thieves to beef up inventory of highly desirable models. “They will give orders: ‘I am looking for a 2024 Mercedes SL350 with leather interiors,’ ” says Noel Moloney, a detective who retired in December after four decades investigating car thefts, first with the New York City Police Department and then with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). “They will have someone sitting at a gas station in Philadelphia looking at people. He has an order for that specific car, and a woman goes in, buys her coffee and leaves her car running. Or he might be able to have her followed and some guys would carjack that car.”
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In the thriving used-car markets of West Africa, the most sought-after vehicles include Range Rovers, Toyota pickups and BMW sedans. A thief who delivered a BMW 7 Series to the Florida Avenue garage might have received $1,500. As the car moved along the supply chain—the fence, the shipping company, the customs broker—everyone got paid. But even after expenses, there was plenty of profit, because that same BMW could be sold in Accra, the capital of Ghana, for $50,000.
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Nowhere in the US in 2023 did car thievery surge more than in metropolitan DC, which saw a staggering 6,809 cars stolen in 2023, a 64% year-over-year increase. Notable cases included the [attempted robbery of a vehicle](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/21/biden-granddaughter-vehicle-break-in-arrests/ "Two arrested in break-in of vehicle used by Biden’s granddaughter - The Washington Post") used to transport President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden, in which Secret Service agents opened fire against armed assailants. Another Washington shoot-out involved [US marshals working the security detail](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13613159/Supreme-Court-Justice-Sonia-Sotomayors-bodyguards-shot-suspected-carjacker-DC.html "Sonia Sotomayor saved from danger: Supreme Court Justice's bodyguard shoots gun-wielding suspect who tried to steal his car outside her DC home | Daily Mail Online") for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. An FBI agent was [carjacked by a 17-year-old](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/17-year-old-arrested-carjacking-fbi-agent-washington-dc-rcna128276 "17-year-old arrested in carjacking of FBI agent in Washington, D.C."). Texas Representative Henry Cuellar had [a gun stuck in his face and his car taken](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-03/congressman-henry-cuellar-is-victim-of-carjacking-in-washington "Congressman Henry Cuellar Is Victim of Washington Carjacking"). Thieves in DC even made headlines after apprehension. A man who was arrested after crashing in a stolen vehicle evaded police custody at the hospital, then stole an ambulance to escape. He was seen on surveillance footage driving away while wearing a hospital gown, [IV needle still in his arm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ot5Y45ubzg "Stolen ambulance suspect arrested | NBC4 Washington - YouTube").
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#### An Unwelcome Reversal
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Motor vehicle thefts reported in the US
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Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer
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Efforts by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to counteract the spree were widely ridiculed, in particular when she ordered district officials to [give away AirTags and Tile tracking devices](https://mpdc.dc.gov/trackmystuff "Air Tag / Tile Giveaway to Help You Track Your Vehicle | mpdc") to car owners in high-risk neighborhoods. “The word will also get out that this is not a community to come in and steal cars, because it won’t be worth your while,” Bowser said. Online commentators mocked the initiative. One wrote, “Well, you’ll know where it’s being stripped or what country it was shipped to.” Another added, “Why not hand out Band-Aids so that in the event of being shot on the street by the thug that is going to steal your car, you don’t bleed to death?”
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Federal law enforcement officials didn’t laugh it off. They described the mayor’s move as risky. Officials in New Jersey highlighted the example of a car owner who used a tracking device to find his stolen vehicle and tried to recover it. He was shot.
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The evidence that’s emerged from the Florida Avenue bust shows a criminal culture with a lot of swagger and not much concern for keeping a low profile. Carjackers stole cellphones from their victims, then kept those devices at home. They stashed the driver’s licenses of their victims in closets, posed online with cash and guns, and regularly posted selfies taken in the cars they’d just stolen. Cops often observe that contemporary car thieves behave as if they’re characters in a video game. As the police monitored communications from one suspect, he bragged about a recent heist. Texting another criminal, he typed GTARL. Officers knew what he was celebrating—*[Grand Theft Auto](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-09/-gta-6-release-date-will-decide-much-of-the-2025-game-calendar "‘GTA 6’ Release Date Will Decide Much of the 2025 Game Calendar")* Real Life.
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Agents examine a car pulled from a shipping container before thieves could export it. Photographer: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek
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In Washington, two-thirds of those arrested for carjacking in recent years are under the age of 18. They’re exploited by adults who heap cash and praise upon them while assuring them they won’t go to jail even if they’re caught. “These gang members are almost grooming these juveniles, acting like a father figure,” says Vicki Parrish, a special agent with HSI. “We see the communications saying, ‘Hey, you are my guy. You are my top performer. Go out and get more.’ ”
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A 12-year-old made headlines throughout 2023 and into 2024 as he stole a BMW, a Jaguar, an Audi, a Tesla and a cargo van. At one point he hit a half-dozen Maryland dealerships in less than a month. By mid-2024 he had been arrested 22 times. A 2022 Maryland judicial reform stipulated that children under the age of 13 can’t be charged with property crimes, so the police [returned the boy to the custody of his parents](https://www.lawyerherald.com/articles/53194/20240910/car-thief-maryland-serial-cops-12-year-old.htm "12-year-old serial car thief strikes again in Maryland, but the cops can't charge him").
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Lynette Munroe, an elementary school teacher in Washington, describes children openly discussing how easy it is to steal cars. Her students refer to stolen vehicles as “free cars.” “We heard them talking: ‘This guy had a free car for the weekend,’ ” Munroe says. When she left her car keys on her desk, a student walking by called out, “Free car!”
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None of this is limited to Washington. Mike Schmidt, a task force officer with HSI in New Jersey, describes adolescent thieves piling into a car during holiday weekends to “go shopping” for vehicles to steal. “They drive around a rich neighborhood, find something like a barbecue, and they see five Mercedes,” Schmidt says. “They are going to try to steal all five.”
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Thieves train on social media. On Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, brief DIY car theft videos explain how to, for example, use a screwdriver and a USB cable to rip off a Kia Optima or Hyundai Elantra. Teenagers across the country turned this into a phenomenon called the [Kia Challenge](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/tiktok-kia-challenge-blamed-for-nyc-car-thefts-by-mayor-eric-adams "TikTok Kia Challenge Blamed for NYC Car Thefts by Mayor Eric Adams"): They recorded themselves stealing cars, posted the videos and challenged others to do the job faster. The Kia Challenge led to multiple deaths as rowdy teenagers, more accomplished at stealing automobiles than driving them, caused fatal crashes.
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These how-to-steal-a-car-after-school videos unleashed a wave of crowdsourced criminality that forced Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. to [hand out, free of charge, 340,000 steering wheel locks](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-31/hyundai-offers-free-steering-locks-to-combat-tiktok-thefts "Hyundai Offers Free Steering Locks to Combat TikTok Thefts"). The companies also updated software to activate an ignition kill system if the USB cord hack was attempted. A $145 million [class-action lawsuit](https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2024/hyundai-and-kia-theft-settlement-final.shtml "Hyundai and Kia Theft Settlement Final | CarComplaints.com") against Kia and Hyundai was given final approval by a federal judge in October 2024.
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Still, the most common way to steal a vehicle is the most basic: finding one with the engine running or the doors unlocked and the keys in sight. These crimes of opportunity represent an estimated 40% of US car thefts. During times of extreme heat or cold, owners often leave the car running (with heat or AC blasting) while making a quick trip into a shop. Or the owner leaves the ignition fob in the center console while carrying a bag of groceries into the house. The robbers, waiting for the moment, slide into the automobile and drive to a location where a fence has set up shop. If the fence sees the car as a candidate for the African markets, it may be inside a shipping container within 24 to 48 hours.
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“A fence might be paying five hundred to a thousand dollars \[per car\], and they might be buying five vehicles or more a week,” Parrish says. “These brokers are working with three or four exporters at the same time. They will send out a message and say, ‘Hey, we have a 2024 Land Rover—who’s interested? Who is going to give me the highest price?’ ”
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Auto thieves aren’t slowed down by efforts to track stolen cars via GPS devices. With a little online research, they learn where the manufacturers place the units in a particular model—typically in the rearview mirror or inside the sun visor—then strip them out. As evidence that a stolen car no longer contains active tracking devices, the criminals deposit the mangled and deactivated GPS units in the cup holder—proof to the next leg of the supply chain that the vehicle is now invisible. “Within the first 5 to 10 minutes of them getting inside the car, they look for the GPS and rip it out,” Schmidt says. “The GPS allows us to track where the car is going. Say it’s a Mercedes-Benz. We can call them up, and they can track it in real time. Once they rip it out? We are done. You are never going to find that car unless we get it leaving the port.” (An exception is Tesla vehicles, which can be set up to require a driver-ID code and have more sophisticated tracking capabilities. There’s also less demand for Teslas and other electric cars in Africa, where there’s only an incipient charging infrastructure.)
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Thieves love rental car companies. They steal a person’s identity, then rent a luxury car under the assumed identity. “They get your address out of the garbage and apply for a credit card under your name. Then they go to Hertz,” says William Walker, acting special agent in charge of the New Jersey offices of HSI. The thief rents the car for a month, perhaps using a fake driver’s license bought from a website in China. It might be 30 days or more before the cardholder notices the unauthorized car-rental charge. At that point, the vehicle is often en route to West Africa.
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And though personal tracking devices may not be safe or sensible for car owners, criminal gangs find them effective. “Criminals are chucking AirTags into your car. Say it’s a shady guy at the place where you get an oil change. Then they see where you live and steal your car. We see a lot of that,” Schmidt says. He suggests that car owners download [tracker-detection apps](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-find-airtags/ "Are You Being Tracked by an AirTag? Here’s How to Check | WIRED") to see if they’re being monitored by a device stashed in their vehicle. After recovering stolen cars, Schmidt has found AirTags hidden by thieves in the back seat, under a floor mat and attached to the spare tire. “They just toss it in, and it’s only the size of a quarter. I see this more and more,” he says. “In the last couple of weeks, we probably found seven AirTags in cars.”
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The gangs also conduct online reconnaissance of affluent neighborhoods, through Google Street View. “Not only do they see the house, they see the vehicles that are sitting in the driveway. And that will be date-stamped,” Walker says. “They don’t have to go out and do physical surveillance. They can do it on the internet, from their phone.”
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After identifying a target, the thieves stalk the house and either plan a break-in to snatch the fob or approach the home close enough to clone the key. Electronic fobs constantly emit radio signals to a distance of about 30 feet. After capturing the signal, often from a fob left near a front or back door, the criminals use a black-market device (sold for less than $1,000) to trick the car into unlocking the doors and starting the engine. They then reconfigure the car security system to a new key. “A lot of people are not aware of the risk that the key provides. It is so glaringly obvious,” says Dan Bulman, co-founder of Keyshield Securities Ltd., a company in the UK that sells a tiny sleeve to wrap around the battery inside a key fob, thus blocking the signal until the key is picked up or moved. “There is a significant level of public education still needed to understand this security threat and how to prevent your car from being stolen.”
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Illustration: Callum Rowland
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Thieves have several options if they plan to export a stolen vehicle. They can file paperwork to declare they’re transporting household goods and sneak the car into a shipping container, sometimes hidden by actual household goods. Or they can forge paperwork, allowing them to declare the vehicle as cargo. In some cases, they go further and alter the 17-character combination of letters and numbers that make up a vehicle identification number, or VIN. Export gangs scour salvage yards searching for the skeletal remains of a coveted make and model. The wrecked vehicle’s VIN can then be attached to a stolen car of that same make and model, which is then exported. Federal agents working in New York describe a gang in the Bronx that can “re-VIN” stolen cars in less than an hour.
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Federal law enforcement agencies employ database detectives to search through cargo shipment paperwork looking for signs of smugglers, but the sheer volume of used-car exports is overwhelming. The Port of New York and New Jersey approved the export of more than 2,000 used cars a day in 2023, meaning that criminals have a huge legal market into which they can add their illegal goods. Most of those automobiles are destined for Africa, but thieves also send damaged luxury cars to Romania (where they will be repaired and then resold), small sedans to the Dominican Republic and intact luxury cars to Dubai.
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TenaVel Thomas, acting executive director of the Customs and Border Protection Field Operations Academy. The map shows facilities that CBP monitors. Photographer: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek
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Most, though, are going to Africa. When stolen vehicles hit the streets there, overstretched local government agencies are unlikely to investigate if one on the road is legal, illegal or of dubious provenance, says Eleanor Beevor, senior researcher at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Beevor conducted a 2022 investigation of the [stolen-car trad](https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Eleanor-Beavor-Car-thieves-of-the-Sahel-Dynamics-of-the-stolen-vehicle-trade-GI-TOC-June-2023.pdf "CAR THIEVES OF THE SAHEL - Global Initiative (.pdf)")e in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—countries where military coups took place in 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively. “If you are trying to run security for a particular town, you are not going to expend much energy running checks on making sure vehicles weren’t stolen thousands of miles away,” she says. “Conflicts have made it even less of a priority than it already was.”
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Once on the ground in Africa, the stolen cars can be kitted out with falsified paperwork. In one hub for forgery, the Niger border town of Birnin-Konni, fake Nigerian license plates sell for $16, and fake vehicle titles cost $2.50. It’s not only cars stolen from the US being offered for sale. Canadian authorities estimated that 80% of all cars stolen from Quebec in 2023 were exported to West Africa. So many cars are snatched in France for the trip to Africa that thieves jokingly referred to that crime as Au Revoir France.
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#### Business Is Booming
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Countries reporting more than 10,000 auto thefts, 2022
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Note: Not all countries reported 2022 data Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
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In 2023, Ghanaian officials working with FBI agents identified 95 stolen cars of US origin being hawked at used-car dealerships across Accra. Many of the vehicles were high-end models, including an Audi Q7, a Porsche Panamera and a Bentley Continental valued at $210,000. There was also a fleet of stolen Ford F-150 pickups, which are coveted by militant groups. They mount heavy weaponry—grenade launchers, machine guns, rocket launchers—atop the bed to race village to village, battle-to-battle, in violent clashes to control an area known as Central Sahel, which includes regions of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
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In Accra, stolen automobiles are tucked into the much larger legal used-car market. Ghana’s expanding middle class, minimal local car manufacturing and a jammed public-transport system using minibuses all help increase the demand for used vehicles. Beevor recalls a fellow aid worker telling her “there are only two kinds of people that buy new cars in West Africa. There are politicians, and there are NGOs. Everyone else buys secondhand.”
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Even in stable and thriving cities such as Accra, the ease with which stolen automobiles circulate is notorious. Ghanaian investigative journalist Philip Agbove describes riding with local law enforcement in 2023 when he noticed a car in front of them with Quebec plates. Agbove pointed it out. The officers showed no interest.
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Any attempt to infiltrate or investigate the West African stolen-car underworld is dangerous. Dealers that trade in stolen vehicles employ spotters to keep an eye on visitors. Armed sentries working for criminals at ports protect their business. Curious interlopers risk being shot. “A group of people in Nigeria specifically working to repatriate stolen cars found on used-car lots in Africa were going out and identifying stolen cars,” says Moloney. “One of those gentlemen was assassinated, and the rest decided to go into another line of business.”
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Moloney of Customs and Border Protection (left) with Walker of Homeland Security Investigations. Photographer: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek
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“Vehicle crime isn’t just about stolen cars,” says Valdecy Urquiza, secretary general for Interpol. “It’s about something far more complex, far more dangerous. It’s about organized crime using those stolen vehicles and parts as currency to fuel a network of illegal activities—from drug trafficking to human smuggling, from the arms trade to acts of terror.”
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The tide of outgoing stolen automobiles is only occasionally stemmed. Most port inspections prioritize containers and shipments entering the country rather than those leaving. But inside a massive warehouse next to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey, sophisticated scanning technology combined with old-fashioned detective work by CBP and local police is making a small dent in the trade by seizing 30 to 50 cars every month.
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During a tour last year, the facility was strewn with row after row of cacao beans in burlap sacks and a mass of children’s plastic playhouses. Alongside was what looked like a luxury car showroom, featuring a dozen confiscated stolen cars including a Range Rover, a BMW and a Mercedes.
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The cacao beans and children’s toys were incoming goods, selected for secondary inspection. The cars on the floor were attempts at exports, recently seized and awaiting further inspection by law enforcement. Federal agents had found two of them in a 40-foot metal shipping container behind a wall of boxes containing cooking oil.
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Moloney sized up an almost-new Mercedes SL Class sedan—original value $117,000. The hood was awash in dust, and handprints were clearly evident; perhaps an incriminating fingerprint could be lifted and traced. Other CBP officers pointed out three cars stolen from the German luxury rental firm Sixt SE that had nearly embarked on an ocean voyage. “We pulled them out after we scanned the container and found them hidden,” Moloney said. He showed off a high-tech truck nicknamed the “Transformer,” which employs a retractable arm to scan the innards of shipping containers.
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“See the roof damage on this one?” he noted ruefully as he examined one car. “They stacked the cars one atop another.”
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A better class of smuggler, he said, can stash four cars per container without a scratch. The thieves use wooden pallets to build a ramp, drive the car high up and use short chains to hang the vehicle from the roof of the container. It’s a three-week journey, the car swinging like an unwieldy chandelier all the way to West Africa.
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*Read next: [The Great €3 Billion Shipping Container Heist](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-09-30/how-p-r-containers-stole-3-billion-from-german-retirees "How P&R Containers Stole €3 Billion From German Retirees")*
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## More On Bloomberg
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---
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`$= dv.el('center', 'Source: ' + dv.current().Link + ', ' + dv.current().Date.toLocaleString("fr-FR"))`
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