Your stolen car may be headed overseas

BETHESDA, Md. — Around our region and across the nation, there has been a startling increase this year in the number of people traumatized by having their cars ripped off.

D.C. has seen the number of auto thefts more than double, from 1,693 at this point last year, to 3,660 so far this year, a 116% increase, according to statistics published by the Metropolitan Police Department.

The U.S. last year saw more than 1 million cars taken, according to National Insurance Crime Bureau, a 7% increase over 2021. 

Thousands of those stolen cars are ending up in places probably wouldn't expect.

EuroMotorCars in Bethesda is among the victims. 

"They pulled up in a stolen car, they broke through this door," said General Manager Jim Willard, describing a brazen theft in August from his newly showroom. "They broke into the safe and just started grabbing keys. They took four cars off the showroom floor."

The thieves took off with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of brand new Mercedes’. "Seemed like a very professional job," said Willard.

Every day in America, more than 2,500 cars disappear. The FBI says that’s about one every 40 seconds.

What’s crazy is that hundreds and hundreds of these stolen cars are ending up overseas. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Port of Baltimore, and around the country, are doing their best to interdict them.

The CBP’s Baltimore Field Office, which covers the ports of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Norfolk-Newport News, has recovered more stolen vehicles so far this fiscal year than any other office in the country.

"Three cars piled up. There’s a red one under the mattress. You can see it’s hanging from the ceiling by those straps there," said CBP port director Adam Rottman, shining a flashlight into a crowded shipping container.

The container was headed to West Africa, with a manifest it contained only household items. But a giant CPB  x-ray scanner spotted three high-end vehicles inside.

Roughly 95% of the vehicles CBP is recovering are headed to countries in West Africa.

“We have dozens of cars out here. And it’s maybe two weeks’ worth of work," walking through a warehouse near the port in Baltimore that was crowded with expensive cars officers were investigating.

Among them, a Mercedes G Wagon, one of EuroMotorCars stolen vehicles. "This one, very expensive automobile. This one is about a $235,000 car," said Rottman.

The thieves had pulled out most of the electronics, doing tons of damage, but successfully preventing the dealer from tracking it.

Still, Rottman had a warning to the international criminal organizations he said are doing most of the smuggling: "They’re gonna get caught. They’re gonna go to jail."

EuroMotorCars Willard says this is far from a victimless crime. He says thefts jack up his insurance rates, and he worries if he puts in too many claims, the insurance companies will cut him off. So when he found out CBP had his G Wagon, "I just couldn’t believe it.”

CBP’s Baltimore Field Office has recovered 239 stolen vehicles so far this fiscal year.

"We’re disrupting these criminal organizations. We’re putting a dent in them. And every time we recover a car, we disrupt them," said Rottman.

EuroMotorCars now has three of its four stolen cars back. But Willard fears the thieves are just getting more brazen. He's considering installing crash barriers like you see on Capitol Hill and embassies to prevent crooks from running off with his cars.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau advises drivers to use four layers of protection: