Smuggling Stolen Cars (Full Episode) | Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller

since the first model T's began rolling off the assembly line Americans have fallen deeply in love with cars they're as personal as clothes or tattoos part of the stories we tell about ourselves Hollywood knows how we feel about them whether they're taking us on an adventure or on a vacation or even to the future we talk to them you all right I can't take another blow like that we give them names we race them let's go for a Little Rock we wreck them but mostly we adore them where's your guard dude which is why I

just had to do a story about people who steal them on average every 36 seconds a car is stolen here in the United States it's big money and it's often done by somebody just like this oh my God what if the people come [Music] out oh my God that took like less than 5 Seconds okay this is it [Applause] watch out watch out oh my God this is insane how many cars you think are here tonight usually we'll get 5,000 more cars from seriously 100% I mean like Gathering of so many cars the donuts none

of that is legal right at all no comment no comment no comment how many cars here do you think are stolen thousands I've reported on a lot of illegal activities but I've never done a story about stolen cars I was tipped off however that these late night meetups would be a good place to start digging like most of these folks I followed a trail of social media posts to this location in New York [Music] City it was announced last minute so that the police wouldn't be able to shut it down [Applause] this underground car culture

is the real life version of The Fast and the Furious now we got cars flying in the air the popularity of these events has exploded with the success of the franchise but not all attendees can afford a fancy car so these meetups have become a popular playground for Joy Riders do so do you guys know anyone who steals cars uh no Noe no I don't personally know anyone no no if you did would you tell me no probably not after Decades of decline in the US auto theft spiked in 2020 to the tune of nearly

900,000 cars yes sir have you ever stolen a car stolen yeah um my first car I stole was when I was 16 I wind up talking to a guy we're calling Anthony how easy is it to steal a car it's easy is quick in and out I'm a tow truck driver so a lot of people ask me to go buy these cars and they pay me lots of money I learned that the old toe and go is one of several unsophisticated yet popular ways to steal a [Music] car if you're a car thief sometimes you've

got the right tools a dark colored tow truck backs up to a house and steals this car while the owner slept sometimes you need a gun my life flashed before my eyes I literally was like this is it and sometimes your targets are just not careful enough this is surveillance video of a car left warming up that was stolen last week about half of stolen cars in the United States end up back in the hands of their rightful owners that leaves over $4 billion worth of unrecovered cars that wind up everywhere from used car lots

to chop shops we got to move we got to move so the police is coming so you hear everybody's running yo we out we out we out and you see everybody running to their cars and leaving look it's good [Music] oh wow yeah now they got CAU Block in the [Music] street how old are you now I'm 20 now how much money do you have you made from the Cars you've stolen so far say like a little under 60,000 stripping them down mainly for parts all sold on east coast and that's not doing it often

and Anthony tells me that it's harder for the cops to trace the parts of a stolen car but the thieves who make the big money must take a bigger risk selling the whole car intact and there's people making hundreds of thousands on nice cars nice nice cars you could sell them as a whole car cuz maybe they're not going to trace the VIN in some third world country it turns out there's an underground supply chain of stolen cars exported overseas that one of the most lucrative smuggling routes in the game so how exactly does a

two-ton object packed with anti- theft technology completely disappear where does it end up and who's pulling the strings on such a complicated operation that's exactly what I want to find out okay so this is it about 2 minutes from the Newark Airport I actually think it's St that this would told before I learned that one hub for these International car theft Rings is based just a few miles down the road in Newark New Jersey oh this is it yeah definitely this isn't for a long time the city was known as the stolen car capital of

the world hi Mariana number one I heard how you want to be called yeah number one for years number one was part of an operation known for moving millions of dollars worth of luxury Vehicles overseas we ran a few cars by you and you said this is one that you used to regularly you stole how many of these particular cars do you think you stole I can't I can't even count it's maybe thousands wait thousands just of this making model yeah was this one of your favorites none of my favorite money is my favorite eventually

his luck ran out over the course of a 2-year investigation called operation jacked authorities seized hundreds of cars valued at over $12 million and convicted more than 50 car ring members including number one when I heard that he'd been released from prison I managed to track him down he was reluctant to talk on camera at first because he told me he's out of the game but eventually he agreed to show us a few of his old tricks oh yeah where where did Jack so it's in the front by the rear viw mirror okay and then

I got to go in the back where in the back all right I see it all right love you bro who was it he he's one of the best to top at doing this at Ste GS yeah what were you doing with was your oh I disabled them tracking device is like OnStar it keeps them from being able to find a car of course we don't want to advertise too much but there's something over there in the rearview mirror and then there's something in the back and that disables the GPS Y and every car has

not every car well the majority cars have tracking device and they in different places so when you called him right now all you said was a model and the make of the car and he immediately knew he knows where everything at does he think that you're actually trying to steal a car yeah did he say anything no no just was automatically gave me the information I needed cuz it could have been critical you have no time to waste yo where you at what you got none of your business I need your help number one insists

that cops have only cracked the tip of the iceburg the big players are still very much in the game the car business is a multi billion dollar year business do you think that people will want their money to stop I ask if he's able to connect me to any active players but he tells me it's too risky people want to kill you to asking questions I wish you luck unfortunately in my experience luck doesn't open many doors I need to find someone who trusts me enough to show me how this racket really works Mar hey

we're uh a couple blocks away like a minute away all right that's cool I'm on my way through okay I decide to tap an old connection from the drug trafficking underworld he tells me that when his dealers head out for a job they'll rent a stolen car for a couple hours from a crew of car thieves he's managed to set up a meeing with one he calls fittingly klepto how many times you do this you always get a little nervous how you doing good how are you good worst thing we can do right now is

we can take you to go look around for the two cars that they're asking for on the list okay what cars are those oh right now we're looking into a Mercedes and a Nissan we got to be careful because this time you book them out sometimes shooting others yeah you see the you see [Music] them the trash can are right there he's actually taking out the trash can from the front of the car so he can move the car okay he's doing it he's doing it right now look look look he's doing it oh my

god did you see that okay he's doing it he's doing it right now look look look oh my god did you see that oh my that took like less than 5 Seconds what did he do he did something to the handle and then it made a noise and it opened you see this he just put the window down and went like this and [Music] waved that was crazy oh my God I don't even I'm like totally discombobulated I don't know what oh my God and now they're going super fast and I'm supposed to keep up

with them and yeah now we're just driving behind a stolen [Music] car and they're parking right here so that was insane Gone in 60 seconds in your case it was gone in 5 seconds exactly that's a lie but I saw you you had a little trouble with the handle at our keyone open car locks how did you open the lock then uh can't really tell you that little secret okay and then once you're inside the ignition starts yes it's a it's a program key you can program the key to any them since most modern cars

are glorified computers on Wheels all that dealerships and locksmiths need to program a virgin key fob is the car's VIN number and all car thieves need is a Savage but corrupt mechanic and so you did your first one I know you're in a bit of a rush to go do your second what's the second par Mercedes so it's a Mercedes you know it's somewhere in this neighborhood what is this neighborhood like it's uh a lot of white people man and you're talking about multi-million dollar homes here it's okay you know they cheat a lot of

people so everybody cheats people rich people cheat people why not let's cheat so does it ever cross your mind how are they going to feel when they wake up in the morning and they don't see their cars they ain't going to suffer they're not going to lose was anything but a damn car that ain't nothing still get money from the bank insurance covers your money but insurance claims go up for everybody we all actually at the end of the day end up paying for cars being of course of course it doesn't make me a bad

guy every time he was putting the gun on me I was like I was like no please don't don't don't please and cuz he was like boom and boom like that he was just hitting me with the gun it was horrible so tell me what's the crew I got my spot that jumps out it takes care of my corner any cop that's coming in whatever I already know the whistle he makes I got my person that drives me right here he's in a tinted up truck he Parks away from me and then of course I

got my other little buddy over there who Parks a little bit further just you know to keep an eye out of course of course he signals him that guy signals him I got to have at least two blocks covered girl cuz no no no no not trying to go to jail again and you were shot at before Oh plenty of times oh my God what if the people come out this makes me so nervous oh my God I feel so bad for the whoever car this is that was insane and I've seen a lot of

crazy what starts to come into Focus as I'm talking to klepto is the organizational structure of these International operations Crews of Thieves like kleptos are the bottom of the pyramid once they steal a car I'm told they want to get rid of it as soon as possible but how and to whom that's what I'm itching to uncover the next levels of the pyramid you dropped off the cars today at the parking lot what happens to those cars well right now the guys are going to go clean them up and then they're going to go what

do you mean by clean them up that's my expertise after years of success running a crew of Thieves klepto career in stolen cars has actually progressed he's now also working in a position that's known as offence how did you learn how to do that since I was a little kid working at body shops you know Fab bers still need other cars you learn trick of the trade the fence is the key middleman in the operation it's his job to handle the logistics of laundering a stolen car to disguise the fact that it's stolen and then

what happens after that um the low jaacks so they won't track them the GPS yes so you have somebody who knows how to do that the GPS remove it and then what happens after that we change the numbers the VIN numbers you have another person who knows how to change VIN numbers yeah the vehicle identification number or vin is a unique lifetime ID born from the moment a car rolls out of the factory klepto doesn't reveal how they change the vins but once a new VIN number is installed they'll Forge New and registration documents to

match and how much you get paid per car it depends on the car like Mercedes so the Mercedes for tonight 30,000 30,000 yeah at each step in the process klepto pays off the players involved the key cost me four $4,000 for the key yeah 3,000 to each of the thieves 2,000 to the VIN forger 1,000 to the Wheelman who disables a GPS so it's that profitable that you can still make money while paying all these people yes I can meaning for a car like the Mercedes after paying off the crew he'll Bank around $12,000 it's

sold to the buyer that's asking for it they send it into the Container you never see it again the car transfers hands to the final player on the US side of the network the shipper you can't just put this in your mortgage and sneak it to another country I meet back up with number one who I know has experienced at this level of the operation over the years he says he's made these drops many many times I don't know exact count but over a couple thousand where were the containers going different countries do you know

where exactly no cuz I was never my part of the business number one agrees to drive me to the location where he'd rendevu with the shippers but warns me that this handoff is still the most dangerous in the process right here with this cars parked in front of that gate yeah that's where we used to pull up Drive in there put the car in the containers and they leave there so the containers would be here waiting they said 10:00 at night then we meet them there 10:00 at night any one of these trucks could be

in the process of doing that right now oh my God we have no way of knowing if thieves will be packing these containers with stolen cars tonight but if they are it's definitely not safe to stick around see the car is still here dangerous like that because we don't know exactly what they doing right and if they see us around here with cameras exactly you don't ask questions somebody standing there with M16s AK47s they were armed the people running the business weren't you scared um the first time I did it yeah I press number one

about who are the kingpins of these car rings but he either doesn't know or won't say so I do what any good journalist does I follow the money to the port in Newark where there's one final hurdle standing in the Smuggler's way that's a nice one oh there's it oh that's a nice one that's a beautiful Jeep right there wow pop the other door wow so is this possibly a stolen car yes possibly good chance Absol very good chance very good chance two in there two Mercedes Benz oh there it there it is there mercedesbenz

in front there's a Jeep here brand new 350 wow brand new they're both brand new cars so here we have a couple of ships the US Customs and Border protection's main focus is to intercept Contraband coming into the United States not heading outbound it's just row after row after row here thousands of containers this is the largest port on the East Coast they estimate that they're only able to inspect a small fraction of cars leaving the United States so that's a VIN number this is the bin number right here on the dash which is good

news for the car theft Rings I've been investigating it's coming up as a positive positive what we got a positive stolen yep wow so it's immediate you can tell right away if you look inside you still see there's a cell phone charger inside so you can see some of still the personal belongings of the person whose vehicle long right out the driveway right out the driveway yeah so does a car like this now that you found it it's stolen and you know eventually who the owner was does it go back to the owner or what

happens well the insurance had already made the payout so this usually goes back to the insurance company kind of feel bad for the owner of the car who so yeah and the fact that we're all standing on top of his car right now once a vessel departs for international waters the cars that slip through have a much much Slimmer chance for recovery this was all the same container four cars ending with this the Escalade they have it packed with personal effects there could be guns in here there could be all sorts of different Contraband these

three cars were in one container if you look you got two of them are salvage cars they're smashed up and then we had this here 2021 Land Rover right there it's a flag for me why something it's out of place you're going to put a 2021 Land Rover and with two wrecks where it might get damaged how many cars are exported from here every year approximately 400,000 cars a year that's 30,000 cars a month or you go through all of them or how does that work it's impossible to go through all of them what was

found last year was 310 stolen cars out of this port I would like to think that's all of them 310 but that's not true it's really like finding a needle in a hay stack so who's actually making money with all this well everybody involved is making money who's making the more my guess is is overseas it hadn't actually occurred to me before that the real money makers of this operation aren't here in the US if there's truly that much money to be made overseas it begs the question who's a top this pyramid and will I

be able to find them how soon after a car is stolen does it end up in a container like this if somebody's stealing it let's call it New York put it in a container next couple hours it's it's on Terminal ready to be the party it could be that fast same day next day kind of could be that day they steal them from outside have them trucked into Jersey put them in a container here and out they go to a number of different destinations one of the most popular destinations for stolen cars shipped from the

east coast is 5,000 m across the Atlantic Ocean in West [Music] Africa in a developing Nation owning a car can be synonymous with entry into the middle class [Music] nowhere is that more evidence than Ghana home to one of the fastest growing economies on the planet walk around the capital Acra and you'll feel the energy opportunity is in the [Music] air the growing economy it doesn't mean that now people are making some amount of money they would want to have a better life there's no way people want to have a better life without owning cars

so it's a huge industry here in Ghana yes I mean we're developing country everybody wants to drive their car people get out of University the next thing they're thinking about is a car Peter as we'll call him is a local investigative journalist who tells me that Rising incomes have opened the door to New Black markets like stolen cars what would happen if people found out you were helping us out that would mean that somebody putting an end to your life is it that dangerous it's very dangerous first of all you're dealing with a society War

people no one even accept the fact that the activities should be investigated in the first place so you think actually that a lot of the people that buy these cars don't know that they're stolen cars a lot of people don't know but some do some do but people who know don't care cuz at the end of the day it's like do we manufacture cars no so it's not as if the action is killing any local industry the vast majority of cars in Ghana are imported in fact they're the number one imported item in the country

people want to have more exotic lives if you meet an old school mate right they're able to judge you by the car you drive so everybody wants to drive a good car whether they are cheap or you know um stolen stolen and that's why black market industry as far as cars is booming here so can you tell me more or less how the process works so the cars arrived you find the people they getting is from these fraud boys what are they called fraud boys the guys involved in this car business they're called the fraud

boys fraud boys yes and everybody knows about them it's well known everybody knows about them and is it all sort of the same Syndicate then no so it depends on the sort of Click you belong to Peter says he can connect me to a contact who's inside their tight-knit circles but it's unclear what role this person [Music] plays there's a guy who's somehow involved in this uh car business who's agreed to talk to us so we're driving to what might be his house or his business I'm not sure the sun is actually going down really

fast going to get dark soon you don't want to get stuck in these unknown roads in the middle of the night well that didn't happen okay I'll go out first little did I know that I had just stepped inside the nerve center of the entire operation [Music] I learned that there are criminal groups behind the stolen car game here in Ghana they're known as fraud [Music] boys I wanted to meet them face to face and find out who's pulling the strings [Music] and if you can put your mask up again sorry so how do you

want to be called Shadow Walker Shadow Walker yes is that your online name yeah that's my online name in the DU in an apartment on the outskirts of AA I connect with one of these Infamous fraud boys what what is it exactly that you do what I do at is is hacking can mimic you we can get access to your bank account credit card information and what I found was the heart of the entire operation so you go to the dark web okay and dark web is not a place that you can go there with

your noral browser everything is also Anonymous using an anonymous browser called tour he accesses the dark web and logs into underground hacker forums where almost any product is listed for sale oh cocaine Colombian cocaine of course we can buy guns everything here there is a credit card information that they are selling oh somebody's selling this yeah they selling if you've ever received an email from your favorite retailer apologizing for a huge data breach a massive Cyber attack affecting nearly 50 million more than 100 million Capital One credit cards it's possible that your identity and credit

card information is being sold at an underground hacker Forum just like this there there are tons of these for sale of course yeah and Rec the amount that the person is selling it for $15 yes for $15 what yeah for a pittance paid anonymously in cryptocurrency criminals can buy your credit card info and loaded onto a fresh card and then what do you do uh with all that information we have within the group somebody to give him credit card information who takes care of it in the US yes with a stolen credit card and a

fake ID these guys can walk walk into any car rental location and drive off with a car that will wind up 5,000 m away on the streets of Acra no broken windows no fake key fobs no carjacking clean and efficient it's right about now that I truly grasp who I'm standing next to he isn't some entrylevel page but rather a technological wizard who binds the whole operation together and he has one more trick up his sleev so this is a car let's say coming from New York to Ghana yes they need to pay their deers

the import fee yes the amount of money is so huge they can't pay that import duties can cost up to 20% of the market value of a car so a brand new Range Rover valued at 100,000 would be taxed 20 grand so it's my duty now to attack the tamah so you can HCK into the custom service at the harbor yeah we make it s my you've paid everything I'm Blown Away by their methods in addition to their American contacts who steel cars the oldfashioned way these sophisticated Ganan operators have found other more ingenious ways

to swipe our beloved rides it all points to the Kingpin at the top of the pyramid and I want to meet whoever that is face to face do you know anyone who's involved in other parts of the car business that no nobody will give you his contact I keep pushing and after some persistence a contact finally leads me to the Breakthrough I've been searching for a meeting with a mastermind we're actually very close to the location seems like it's a really nice neighborhood here right it's a bunch of big houses are to show you is

this somebody we should trust uh what matters like this [Music] hi um thank you for meeting us um what what what is this what car is this this is a mercedesbenz C250 it's a nice car and it's from it's stolen uh yeah it just came from the states do you know where in the states I have no idea when it still where it's coming from like many of these underworld First Dates the vibe is tense suspicious he has to be called Ivan and I can sense that he's sizing me up when did this arrive in

Ghana to 3 months ago two three months ago and do you have people interested already this happens to be in a garage so oh so this is in a car dealership what we call the W so it's one of several there but this is what I have available at the moment can I go inside hey sure be my guest so crazy to think that just a couple of months ago this car was in the US belonging to somebody else what other cars came in the same sort of shipment as this one uh it comes in

the consignment of like 3 4 5 6 the mood starts to relax I feel like he's warming up to me he tells me that his group is one of the bigger operations in a and that they buy stolen cars in bulk shipments how much did you pay for this one this one yeah do you pay what you can pay for a car I know but how much I just want to get a sense of your so I don't want to I don't have an answer to that but ultimately he plays koi in spite of my

effort to get more information from him he ends up refusing to answer most of my questions how do I open this so I decide to poke around and see if I can learn anything more about this mystery car oh and this is because the GPS has been cut out I guess maybe there might be a reason why they took it off wow so check this out this is tampered with what's in [Music] here is this the Red Lobster do you have Red Lobster here no oh my God Virginia let me see let have a I

will I will so we're close to knowing that at least the person was in Virginia I have no idea you try to hide that as soon as possible he doesn't want to really show that I won't say the city in Virginia there was also a city in Virginia I didn't say that uh just a minute I don't know maybe it's somebody who wants to buy this car okay definitely should be a buyer so I can make a quick money and he's driving off he left before I could get what I wanted a confession a tell

all interview about the whole stolen car operation from one of the big players the stolen Mercedes-Benz that got here just a few months ago from the US I'm dying to know more about this car's history who owned it do they miss it and do they have any idea idea where their car is now back in America I get some answers about this mystery car from detective Paula Brunetto with the Connecticut State Police she's been investigating car theft rings for decades yeah I looked at the VIN and um so it's from a 2014 Mercedes-Benz that was

involved in a serious crash which caused it to be a total loss no one's going to drive this car you're telling me that you saw this car in Africa being driven and it was not smashed up right no it was a beautiful mercedesbenz so the car you saw was probably stolen with a vin with the VIN number from this one that was total in a horrific crash in Florida a stolen car's VIN number would be flagged by authorities but a totaled car's Vin wouldn't so there is no way that the VIN on that car that

I saw was the real VIN number for their car I very very much doubt that the car you saw in Africa was the same exact car the VIN number on that car was revined and is being driven around in another country with some clever coordination the fraud boys can swap out the VIN of a stolen C with the same make and model that they pick up at a salvage auction so once he comes up clean from the court there's nothing to worry about there's nothing to worry about it raises a question about who's really calling

the shots in these operations and who's making most of the money I needed to get some answers so I asked Ivan if he'd be willing to meet me again in our first meeting he didn't divulge much information and it's rare to get a follow-up meeting with a top dog but I'm hoping it will happen I know there's a lot more he's not telling me we were actually told to wait in this uh parking lot by this church okay this is where he's supposed to meet us I wasn't sure if he'd show up I think this

might be him yeah he just bed but now it's go [Music] time I managed to convince one of the top fraud boys in the stolen car game in Ghana to meet me for a rare second interview I'm hoping this will be my chance for a tell all to see the stolen car world through his eyes and here's another club and here you go more fancy cars we've got more Mercedes he takes me to an area known for nightlife in a c a place where he and fellow fraud boys come to woo potential clients Mercedes Mercedes

are big here Maserati do you think that's stolen it's possible most of these guys are all stolen you really yeah most of the boys come here to hang out top guys that are into the business now the cooling car business this is how some family Generations have made money how much money do you think we're talking about millions of dollars the biggest the business have become the competition who owns the latest cars and that proves your connections that proves you have strong contact up until this point I had assumed that the American criminals were the

masterminds of these operations and that West Africa proved to be a useful place to offload their merchandise thees to make available most expensive car that you can think of so who's making most of the money the one who cars to sell it makes the money but he's finally spilling the beans and as it turns out it's actually the opposite so you make most of money yeah yeah I make most of the money the fraud boys are not just the buyers they're the masterminds of the operation and have found willing American criminals to do their dirty

work the chain is sort of separated cut off so that you don't know what's happen on the other side right and that protects the whole Enterprise yeah that's how is it's guys like Ivan in West Africa who are actually at the top of the pyramid in these International car theft drinks everybody wants cheap stuff in Africa so even rich people buy want yeah rich people buy cheap stuff so if you have a luxury car that's is selling for like $60,000 that on the market is about $120,000 that's a better deal that wouldn't that raise Flags

a car that's a third of raising the flags yeah but at least it would raise some sort of Suspicion right the for the buyer wouldn't they think for a second oh maybe this how would they know nobody knows so it goes really deep this business here it's not just about stoling cars we have the mix of these businesses the fraud boys like the name suggests are always on the lookout for the next opportunity the next scam you know the do who is where everything happens right I'm doing a business I want to make profit out

of whatever it is their tentacles stretched into all sorts of criminal activities money laundering romance scams gold fraud they're part of a growing Syndicate that's way bigger than i' imagined you feel sorry for the people that woke up one morning and they don't have their cars outside their houses I'm looking at how can sell the car and make money I I'm not looking at how the other guy feels okay but isn't there a little part of you that thinks the poor guy doesn't have a car maybe he like saved all his money to buy this

car when I hear somebody crying about his car then I'll feel gu but since I'm not hearing that cry it's far away yeah I mean it's far away so I don't feel guilty in any way with so much distance between the steel and the cell it's not hard to imagine feeling disconnected he might not feel guilty but others do do you ever feel bad for the people uh yes sometimes I ask myself so what you do my for someone yeah but somebody will do the same thing to me they're not going to feel bad for

me if you go you end up in prison you act yourself wasn't worth it and it wasn't do you feel bad at all no I need the money just probably better more than worse than they do no matter how you feel about the justifications for stealing these cars the truth is as long as the orders keep coming from this side of the Atlantic the the entire underground pipeline is bound to keep thriving there's no real deterrent to stop doing this right yeah it's illegal from the states not from my end how many cars do you

estimate are being stolen every day in the city 100s hundreds I mean we don't just take them here all across oh yeah if you can get a Bentley for the price of Honda Accord you're going to get it so year business all your money is profit you got to give me a good reason why you think it'll stop [Music]