The Port of Virginia is one of the largest container ports in the United States. It’s also a hotspot for people trying to illegally ship cars in and out of the county — sometimes in parts in several containers, later reassembled — with the second-most vehicles recovered here in Hampton Roads (next to New York).
High-end cars like BMWs, Range Rovers, Mercedes, Ram trucks, and even a Rolls Royce worth nearly $467k have all been recovered in Norfolk, and bound for places like Turkey, Ghana, Nigera, Togo and the United Arab Emirates. Even cars like Toyotas have shown up in containers bound for other continents, so it’s not just high-end cars; anyone could be susceptible.
Officials say tracking these transnational criminal organizations is extremely challenging due to the large, organized networks they employ, involving fraudulent documents and fake IDs…