Postal worker holdup leads to muscle car theft ring arrests

DETROIT (AP) — Thieves are using cloned key fobs to steal Dodge muscle cars and other high-powered vehicles directly from dealerships and even automakers in Michigan, then selling them for tens of thousands of dollars less than their value, according to authorities and court records.

For one Ohio-based theft ring, it all came crashing down after a January holdup of a U.S. postal worker led authorities to connect several men to brazen car thefts in the Detroit area, long home to the country’s biggest automakers, including Dodge, which is now owned by international conglomerate Stellantis.

Investigators then discovered that new Chargers, Challengers, Durangos and Ram pickups worth $50,000 to $100,000 were turning up in Ohio, Indianapolis and East Cost shipping ports after being sold on the street for $3,500 to $15,000, according to a criminal complaint.

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Instead of stealing them off the street, they’re driving them straight off dealership and assembly plant lots.

Just this year, about a half-dozen vehicles — primarily Dodge Ram TRX pickups — were taken from a lot outside an assembly plant in Macomb County.

After security measures were stepped up at some lots with Dodge vehicles, more than a dozen 2022 Ford F-150 Raptor pickup trucks were swiped from a plant lot in June in suburban Dearborn. More than a dozen Ford Mustangs were stolen in early September from the automaker’s assembly plant in Flat Rock, southeast of Detroit.

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Harris told the FBI that he and Jones had been in contact through Instagram with people in the Detroit area to get stolen vehicles, according to the complaint. Harris said those thieves “were also selling to buyers in other areas, including Chicago and Indianapolis,” the complaint said.

Videos posted on social media show how the high-horsepower vehicles outpaced and evaded police.

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Then last fall, a dealership’s showroom northwest of Detroit was broken into. Someone drove a Ram pickup through the building’s glass wall and “all the other cars followed suit,” said Jeff Schneider, general manager at Szott Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Highland Township.

“I think they were able to find some keys in a desk drawer and used them,” he added.

Police tracked one of the stolen cars, a Durango Hellcat SRT valued at about $100,000, to a suburb northwest of Detroit. The driver had crashed into a brick wall while fleeing. A 2021 Dodge Durango GT, 2021 Dodge Ram TRX and a 2017 Dodge Charger Hellcat SRT were later recovered.

Authorities arrested four people. They were not believed to have stolen the vehicles, but to have paid $5,000 for one.

“In the Detroit area they are selling them for like $3,500,” Hanna said. “Once they get that money in their pockets they go out and steal another one.”

For dealerships and their insurance companies, the cost is high. Even recovered vehicles can’t be sold for what they were once worth.

Schneider said his dealership came up with an “old school” solution: parking boots.

“It’s a deterrent that works amazingly,” he said. “We put boots on all the Hellcats.”

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