HONOLULU (KHON2) — They attribute the crime trend to social media posts that showed people how to steal those particular vehicles.
It has been a problem on the mainland and HPD said they noticed it happening here late last year.
“From Dec. 1 to current, yesterdays date, so basically we’ve seen about 120 Kias and Hyundais either stolen or attempts to steal them,” said deputy chief Keith Horikawa, HPD. “So again with about 120 of these stolen cars or attempted stolen cars you know it’s basically represents about 30 percent of total stolen cars that were stolen in that time period. There was about 400 total.”
The deputy police chief added many of the cars are being stolen from Kalihi, Honolulu, and East Honolulu.
He also said the car thefts may be linked to other crimes.
“And there is I’m not gonna get into too much details on this cause we’re still investigating still part of our overall look at some of the smash and grabs. There seems to be a possible correlation with these stolen Kias with the smash and grabs,” continued Horikawa.