Thieves Swap 26 Cars From Queens, NY Dealership

by Tim Healey

Published: November 8th, 2022

thieves swap 26 cars from queens ny dealership

Car thieves broke into a car dealership in Queens, New York over the weekend, snatched the keys to 26 vehicles, and took them home.

This is shortly after 20 luxury cars were stolen from a Mitsubishi dealer in nearby Jamaica, Queens. The manner of the theft was similar.

NYPD is looking into whether the same people were involved in each theft.

It's tough enough for dealers to keep enough inventory on their lots this year -- and now thieves are just brazenly breaking in and taking cars.

Yours truly doesn't always have sympathy for car dealers, but no business person wants to see their product stolen.

[Image: Daniel Jedzura/Shutterstock.com]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

Comments

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9 of 19 comments

ToolGuy on Nov 08, 2022

"NYPD is looking into whether the same people were involved in each theft."
No, the dealership personnel were involved in a different kind of theft.

1 Reply
EBFlex on Nov 09, 2022

I thought crime was just perception. Do we know if this really happened?

1 Reply
- Sgeffe on Nov 09, 2022
  
  🤔
  
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Steve Jacobs on Nov 09, 2022

Luxury cars at a Mitsubishi dealership???

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- See 2 previous
- Wjtinfwb on Nov 09, 2022
  
  Can't speak for elsewhere, but in the South, many Mitsubishi dealers have been driven to becoming outlets for higher-end used cars with a checkered history. Probably because you'd starve trying to make a living on Mitsubishi's skinny portfolio of product. Usually off-lease or auction cars and trucks from M-B, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Maserati, etc. Most of them are either higher mileage or have a CarFax history indicating accident or repo history. They sell them for less than a similar car without the history at the marque in question's dealership. My brother bought a 3 year old Mercedes GL550 from a Mitsu dealer in the Tampa Bay area. He immediately had to sink about 3 grand into it to fix all the things the dealer didn't disclose or fix. My guess is that's what these dealers were specializing in as well.
  
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- Lou_BC on Nov 09, 2022
  
  I've heard of dealerships being a good way to launder money. In Canada one can show up with buckets of cash to buy a vehicle and the dealer is under no legal obligation to report the cash transaction whereas any other entity has to report any cash transaction 10k or over. The luxury vehicle is then typically resold in the USA exempting it from Canadian taxes.
  
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- Dukeisduke on Nov 09, 2022
  
  According to the two Post articles, the 26 cars in the latest heist were from a used car lot ("Carsiri" in Queens), and the 20 cars taken from the Mitsubishi dealer (also in Queens) were also used cars (Acuras, Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes-Benzes, with model years between 2016 and 2019). They got into the offices, grabbed the keys, and drove off with the cars. Cops in Brooklyn have apparently recovered one of the Audis taken from the Mitsubishi dealer.
  
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Ravenuer on Nov 09, 2022

Anybody ever think of locking the keys up before closing?

Like Reply
- Oberkanone on Nov 09, 2022
  
  There is an entire industry around providing key management systems for dealerships. Matrix, KeyMaster, KeyBox etc. Skillset of thieves to hack the systems is not rare (or inside connect) and vehicles are gone. Perhaps a series on the inside workings of dealerships is in order.
  
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