Two Oakland men tied to an alleged car theft ring vanished months ago, and police now fear they were killed in a violent dispute linked to a notorious East Oakland chop shop. As investigators search for answers and families brace for the worst, the case has become a stark window into how underground auto crime can escalate from quiet profit to suspected murder.
What began as a missing persons investigation involving Justin Wayne Lee and Esmeraldo Vivero has hardened into a grim homicide probe, with detectives focusing on a well known chop shop corner and a reported clash over stolen vehicles. The men remain officially missing, but the working theory inside the case is that a business feud inside a car theft network turned deadly and that their bodies may have been hidden.
The disappearance of Justin Wayne Lee and Esmeraldo Vivero
The core of the case is simple and chilling: OAKLAND, Calif authorities say it has been about seven months since Justin Wayne Lee, 29, and Esmeraldo Vivero, 34, disappeared without a trace. Both men were reportedly involved around an East Oakland car theft scene, and their sudden absence, with no bank activity or confirmed sightings, quickly raised alarms among relatives and investigators. The length of time that has passed without contact has shifted expectations from hopeful to grim, and police now treat the situation as a likely double killing tied to criminal business.
Family members describe Lee and Vivero as imperfect but loved, men who moved in risky circles yet still called home and showed up for relatives. That pattern stopped abruptly, and as weeks turned into months, loved ones began to fear what detectives were already whispering, that the two men might have been silenced over a dispute inside a car theft ring. One of the key accounts comes from Vivero’s younger sister, who told KTVU she is “pretty sure he’s not living and walking right now,” a raw assessment that matches what investigators now privately suspect about the fate of both men.
A chop shop at the center of the investigation
At the center of the investigation sits a notorious East Oakland chop shop, a corner operation long rumored to strip and move stolen vehicles. Video posted on Instagram earlier this winter shows Oakland police and the FBI swarming that property, digging and searching for any sign that Lee and Vivero might have been buried there. The clip, widely shared in local circles, captured agents methodically combing through the lot, a visual confirmation that federal and local authorities see the site as ground zero for what they increasingly believe was a deadly dispute…