A 36-year-old Westerville, Ohio man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison and ordered to repay $578,221 for his role in a scheme that used stolen and fake identities to rent vehicles, drive them across state lines, and sell them to buyers who shipped them overseas. Souleymane Kah was sentenced to 60 months behind bars plus three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.
Kah and his co-conspirators rented, transported, and sold more than 20 vehicles as part of the operation, per the Justice Department's account. Prosecutors said the group used driver's licenses belonging to people who had no idea their information was being used, along with fake driver's licenses, to rent the cars in the first place. The scheme ran between December 2020 and December 2021, prosecutors said, and stretched across rental locations throughout the central and eastern United States.
How the Scheme Moved Cars and Cash
Once the vehicles were rented under fraudulent identities, the ring transported them across state lines before selling them to buyers who later exported the cars overseas, prosecutors said. Payment for the group came in multiple forms — cash, money-transfer apps, and in at least one instance a luxury vehicle, according to the Dispatch's reporting on the case.
Kah pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and two counts of transporting stolen vehicles.
Under 18 U.S. Code § 2312, transporting a stolen motor vehicle across state lines or in foreign commerce carries a statutory penalty of up to 10 years in prison per count, according to the Legal Information Institute. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case, while Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meghan Claiborne Bisio and Kara Traster prosecuted it.
A Piece of a Much Bigger Trafficking Picture
Kah's case fits into a pattern federal officials have been tracking at Mid-Atlantic ports for years. During fiscal year 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at seaports within the Baltimore Field Office intercepted 307 stolen vehicles valued at $14.5 million that were headed to overseas markets, a 23 percent jump over the prior year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That field office, which covers major commercial seaports from New Jersey through Virginia, ranks second nationally for stolen vehicle recoveries at seaports, trailing only the New York Field Office.
The scale of Kah's ring is a fraction of the nationwide problem. Over 850,000 motor vehicles were stolen across the United States in 2024 — averaging roughly one theft every 37 seconds, according to CBS Mornings.
Kah's sentencing also reflects a shift in prosecutorial posture in Philadelphia's federal court. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania stood up a specialized White-Collar Justice Program in late 2025 under U.S. Attorney David Metcalf, with white-collar enforcement priorities including healthcare, securities fraud, and public corruption, according to Blank Rome LLP. Metcalf was appointed to lead the district in 2025.
The scheme involved co-conspirators and buyers who shipped vehicles overseas.
