Thieves with a penchant for high-tech schemes have recently pulled off a daring heist, swiping two luxury cars valued at half a million dollars in Florida. The Hollywood police are on the trail of a skilled hacker who apparently manipulated automobile transportation systems to reroute and steal the pricey vehicles, reported on June 17 by WSVN. One of the stolen cars, a 2024 Mercedes Benz GLS 600 Maybach worth an estimated $200,000, was supposed to be delivered by Dealers Choice Auto Transport Service to a customer in Hollywood.
According to the WSVN news report, the delivery location was changed to Miami from Hollywood, following the hacker's interference. Describing the audacious theft, Steven Yariv from Dealers Choice expressed how the hacker had gained access to the driver’s portal, which contained details of the vehicles in transit. “The criminal actually hacked into the driver’s portal and knew what vehicles were being transported, they knew what was going on. The thief happened to reach out to the driver acting as if he was the receiving party and gave him all the right information, told him where the car is supposed to go," Yariv told WSVN.
The delivery driver unwittingly handed off the vehicle to the suspect, having been misled by the altered delivery instructions. The WPTV coverage noted that the driver had taken precautionary measures such as a fingerprint, but it wasn't until after photo evidence of the drop-off did the team realize something was amiss. "He stood behind, not realizing that the driver was taking pictures of the car on delivery, and there is he right there in the background, full body," Yariv said in the WPTV report.
The situation grew bolder as the thief taunted the auto transportation service via text messages, flaunting the successful theft and hinting at the vehicles' potential locations. The brazen messages read, according to Yariv in the WSVN interview, “Thanks for the free Maybach dawg. Bro, car already in Dubai, or Europe you guess,” followed by a picture of the torn-up floorboard where a GPS tracker is normally hidden. In a similar heist, another luxury vehicle, a Cullinan Rolls Royce, was also stolen under what seemed to be identical circumstances.
The Miami Police and Miami-Dade Police are conducting ongoing investigations related to the theft of the Maybach and the Rolls Royce respectively. Both Steven Yariv and the owner of the stolen Rolls Royce, Steven Waisman, have offered $20,000 rewards for information leading to the recovery of their vehicles. The public is urged to contact the City of Miami Police or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS with any relevant information. Tips can be given anonymously, with a possibility of earning a reward of up to $5,000 for useful leads.
