- Arizona law enforcement just busted what it says is a multi-million dollar car theft ring.
- In the process, it recovered 29 vehicles, cash, and several firearms and arrested three people.
- It says that the suspects would rent out the cars on Turo to profit even more from their theft.
If you’ve rented a car in the Phoenix area recently, there’s a chance it was used in a crime. No, really. Local authorities have uncovered a theft ring that was renting out high-end vehicles on Turo, the popular car-sharing platform, as part of an elaborate scheme. In the end, three people with international connections are behind bars, and the cops have recovered 29 stolen cars worth nearly $2.5 million.
In what it called “Operation Escalading Switch” (cool name, huh?) the Arizona Vehicle Theft Task Force executed several search warrants on Tuesday. They stumbled upon more than two dozen cars, several of which had altered vehicle identification numbers. Authorities say many of the cars they found ended up on Turo, the rental website, within a week after being swiped.
Among the recovered vehicles? A Chevrolet Corvette, a Rolls-Royce Ghost, an Aston Martin DBX, and a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. So, if you’ve rented one of those recently, congratulations, you might have been driving something that could’ve had a much more colorful past than you thought…