♪ ♪
(distant sirens wailing)
(car engine revving)
MARIANA: Since the first model Ts began rolling off the assembly line,
Americans have fallen deeply in love with cars.
They are as personal as clothes or tattoos,
part of the stories we tell about ourselves.
Hollywood knows how we feel about them.
Whether they're taking us on an adventure or on a vacation,
or even, to the future.
We talk to them.
MICHAEL: You all right?
KITT: I can't take another blow like that.
MARIANA: We give them names.
CAROLE: Herbie!
MARIANA: We race them.
DOMINIC: Let's go for a little ride.
MARIANA: We wreck them.
But mostly, we adore them.
WALTER: Where's your car dude?
MARIANA: Which is why I just had to do a story about people
who steal them.
On average, every 36 seconds,
a car is stolen here in the United States.
It's big money.
And it's often done by somebody just like this.
Oh my God, what if the people come out?
(car engine revving)
Oh my God, that took, like, less than five seconds.
(bleep).
(car engine revving)
(theme music playing)
(ticking)
MARIANA: Okay, this is it.
Watch out, watch out.
Oh my God, this is insane.
♪ ♪
MAN: Woo, woo, woo!
Woo!
MARIANA: How many cars do you think are here tonight?
MAN: Usually we'll get 5,000 or more cars coming here.
MARIANA: Seriously? MAN: 100%.
MARIANA: I mean, a gathering of so many cars, the donuts.
MAN 2: Woo!
MARIANA: None of that is legal right?
(laughter)
MAN: I don't know, no comment.
MAN 2: No comment.
MAN: No comment.
MARIANA: How many cars here do you think are stolen?
MAN: Thousands.
MARIANA: I've reported on a lot of illegal activities,
but I've never done a story about stolen cars.
I was tipped off however that these late-night meet-ups
would be a good place to start digging.
Like most of these folks, I followed a trail of social media posts
to this location in New York City.
It was announced last minute
so that the police wouldn't be able don't shut it down.
(cheering)
This underground car culture is the real-life version of
The Fast and the Furious.
ROMAN: Hey man, we got cars flying in the air?
MARIANA: The popularity of these events has exploded with
the success of the franchise.
(popping)
But not all attendees can afford a fancy car.
So, these meet-ups have become a popular playground for joyriders.
MAN: Woo-hoo!
(fireworks exploding)
MARIANA: Okay so, do you guys know anyone who steals cars?
MAN 2: Uh, no.
MAN: Nah, no, I don't personally know anyone, no.
No.
MARIANA: If you did, would you tell me?
MAN: No, probably not. MAN 2: No.
MARIANA: After decades of decline in the US,
auto theft spiked in 2020 to the tune of nearly 900,000 cars.
MAN: Yes, sir.
MARIANA: Have you ever stolen a car?
ANTHONY: Stolen, yeah, um,
my first car I stole was when I was 16.
MARIANA: I wind up talking to a guy we're calling Anthony.
How easy is it to steal a car?
MARIANA: I learned that the old "Tow and Go,"
is one of several unsophisticated,
yet popular ways to steal a car.
If you're a car thief, sometimes you've got the right tools.
REPORTER (over TV): A dark-colored tow truck backs up to a house and
steals this car while the owner slept.
MARIANA: Sometimes you need a gun.
WOMAN (over TV): My life flashed before my eyes.
I literally was like, "This is it."
MARIANA: And sometimes your targets are just not careful enough.
REPORTER 2 (over TV): This is surveillance video of a car left warming up
that was stolen last week.
MARIANA: About half of stolen cars in the United States end
up back in the hands of their rightful owners.
That leaves over $4 billion worth of unrecovered cars that
wind up everywhere from used car lots to chop shops.
(sirens wailing)
MAN: We gotta move, we gotta move.
(sirens wailing)
MARIANA: So, the police is coming so you hear everybody's running.
MAN: Yo, we out.
We out, we out, yo, yeah, yeah.
MARIANA: And you see everybody running to their cars and leaving?
Look, it's good.
(sirens wailing)
Oh, wow.
MARIANA: How old are you now?
MARIANA: How much money have you made from the cars you've stolen so far?
MARIANA: Anthony tells me that it's harder for the cops to
trace the parts of a stolen car.
But the thieves who make the big money must take a bigger risk,
selling the whole car intact.
MARIANA: It turns out there's an underground supply chain
of stolen cars exported overseas.
That's one of the most lucrative smuggling routes in the game.
So how exactly how does a two-ton object packed with
antitheft technology completely disappear?
Where does it end up?
And who's pulling the strings on such a complicated operation?
That's exactly what I want to find out.
(sirens wailing)
Okay.
So, this is it.
We're about two minutes from the Newark airport.
I actually think I've stayed at this hotel before.
I learned that one hub for these international car theft rings
is based just a few miles down the road in Newark, New Jersey.
Oh, this is it.
Yeah, definitely.
This is it.
For a long time, the city was known as
the stolen car capital of the world.
Hi, Mariana.
MARIANA: Number One, I heard? NUMBER ONE: Yeah.
MARIANA: How you want to be called?
MARIANA: For years, Number One
was part of a operation known for moving
millions of dollars' worth of luxury vehicles overseas.
We ran a few cars by you and you said
this is one that you used to regularly, you've stolen.
NUMBER ONE: Mm-hmm.
MARIANA: How many of these particular cars do you think you've stolen?
NUMBER ONE: I can't, I can't even count.
It's maybe thousands.
MARIANA: Wait, thousands just of this make and model?
NUMBER ONE: Yeah.
MARIANA: Was this one of your favorites?
NUMBER ONE: None of them is my favorite.
Money is my favorite.
MARIANA: Eventually his luck ran out.
Over the course of a two-year investigation called,
"Operation Jacked,"
authorities seized hundreds of cars valued at over $12 million,
and convicted more than 50 car ring members,
including Number One.
When I heard that he'd been released from prison, I managed to track him down.
He was reluctant to talk on camera at first, because he told me he's out of the game.
But eventually he agreed to show us a few of his old tricks.
(phone line ringing)
NUMBER ONE: Oh, yeah.
MAN (over phone): It's, it's in the front, rearview mirror.
NUMBER ONE: So, it's in the front by the rearview mirror.
Okay.
And then I gotta go in the back.
NUMBER ONE: All right, love you, bro.
MARIANA: Who was it?
MARIANA: At doing this? At stealing cars?
NUMBER ONE: Yeah, Yeah.
MARIANA: What were you doing?
What was your...
NUMBER ONE: Oh, I disabled the little tracking device,
it's like OnStar,
it keeps them from being able to find the car.
MARIANA: Of course, we don't want to advertise too much.
NUMBER ONE: No, Yeah.
MARIANA: But there's something over there in the rearview mirror and
then there's something in the back and that disables the GPS?
NUMBER ONE: Mm-hmm, yep.
MARIANA: And every car has...
NUMBER ONE: Not every car,
but majority cars have a tracking device.
And they're in different places.
MARIANA: So, when you called him right now,
all you said was the model and the make of the car and he immediately knew?
NUMBER ONE: Yeah, he knows where everything at.
MARIANA: Does he think that you're actually trying to steal a car?
NUMBER ONE: Yeah. MARIANA: Did he say anything?
No?
NUMBER ONE: No.
Just was automatic gave me the information that I needed because
it could have been critical.
You have no time to waste.
"Yo, where you at?
What you got?
None of you (bleep) business I need your help."
MARIANA: Number One insists that cops have only
cracked the tip of the iceberg.
The big players are still very much in the game.
MARIANA: I asked if he's able to connect me to any active players,
but he tells me it's too risky.
MARIANA: Unfortunately, in my experience,
"luck" doesn't open many doors.
I need to find someone who trusts me enough to show me how this racket really works.
(phone line ringing)
MAN (over phone): Mariana?
MARIANA: Hey, we're a, a couple blocks away.
Like a minute away.
MAN (over phone): All right that's cool.
I'm on my way too.
MARIANA: Okay, bye.
I decide to tap an old connection from the drug trafficking underworld.
He tells me that when his dealers head out for a job,
they'll rent a stolen car for a couple hours from
a crew of car thieves.
He's managed to set up a meeting with one he calls, fittingly, Klepto.
(sighs)
No matter how many times you do this, you always get a little nervous.
(beeping)
MARIANA: Good, how are you? KLEPTO: I'm Good.
MARIANA: Okay, what cars are those?
MARIANA: Yeah, you see the, you see them?
Ah, the trash cans are right there.
Ah, he's actually taking out the trash can from the front of a car,
so he can move the car.
Okay, he's doing it, he's doing it right now.
Look, look, look.
He's doing it.
Oh my God, did you see that?
♪ ♪
MARIANA: Okay, he's doing it, he's doing it right now.
Look, look, look.
Oh my God, did you see that?
Oh my, that took like less than five seconds.
What did he do?
He did something to the handle, then it made a noise and it opened.
Do you see this?
He just put the window down and went like this and waved.
(distant sirens wailing)
(bleep).
That was (bleep) crazy.
Oh, my God.
I don't even, I'm, like, totally discombobulated.
I don't know what, oh my God.
And now they're going super-fast and I'm supposed to keep up with them.
And yeah, now we're just driving behind a stolen car.
And they're parking right here.
So that was insane.
Gone in 60 seconds, in your case, it was gone in five seconds.
KLEPTO: Exactly, that's a lie.
MARIANA: But I saw you had a little trouble with the handle?
KLEPTO: Uh, our keys don't open car locks.
MARIANA: How did you open the lock then?
KLEPTO: Uh, can't really tell you that little secret.
MARIANA: Okay.
And then once you're inside, the ignition starts.
KLEPTO: Yes, it's a, it's a programed key.
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
KLEPTO: And you can program the key to any damn car.
MARIANA: Since most modern cars are glorified computers on wheels,
all that dealerships and locksmiths need to reprogram a virgin key fob is
the car's vin number.
And all car thieves need is a savvy but corrupt, mechanic.
And so you did your first one.
I know you're in a bit of a rush now to go do your second.
KLEPTO: Yes.
MARIANA: What's the second car?
KLEPTO: It's a Mercedes.
MARIANA: So it's a Mercedes, you know it's somewhere in this neighborhood.
KLEPTO: Yes.
MARIANA: What, what is this neighborhood like?
KLEPTO: It's, uh, a lot of White people, man.
And you're talking about multimillion-dollar homes here.
It's okay.
You know, they cheat a lot of people.
So everybody cheats people, rich people cheat people.
Why not?
Let's cheat, so...
MARIANA: What you did, does it ever cross your mind?
How are they going to feel when they wake up in the morning and
they don't see their cars?
KLEPTO: They ain't going to suffer.
They're not going to do anything about a damn car.
It ain't nothing.
You're stealing money from the bank.
Insurance covers your money.
MARIANA: But insurance claims go up for everybody we all actually,
at the end of the day, end up paying for cars being stolen.
KLEPTO: Oh, of course.
Of course, that doesn't make me a bad guy.
WOMAN (over TV): Every time he was pointing the gun at me, I was like,
I went like, "No, please! Don't, don't, don't, please."
And cause he was like boom and boom, like that.
He was just hitting me with the gun.
It was horrible.
MARIANA: So tell me, what's the crew?
KLEPTO: Well, I got my spotter that jumps out and takes care of my corner.
Any cop that's coming in, whatever,
I already know the whistle he make.
(whistles)
I got my person that's driving right here.
He's in a tinted-up truck.
He parks away from me.
And then of course I got my other little buddy over there
who parks a little bit further just, you know.
MARIANA: To keep an eye out? KLEPTO: Of course. Of course.
He signals him.
That guy signals him.
I got to have at least two blocks covered, girl.
'Cause no, no, no, no.
I'm not trying to go to jail again.
MARIANA: And you were shot at before?
KLEPTO: Oh, plenty of times.
MARIANA: Oh, my God.
What if the people come out?
This makes me so nervous.
Oh, my God, I feel so bad for whoever's car this is.
That was insane, and I've seen a lot of crazy (bleep).
What starts to come into focus as I'm talking to Klepto is
the organizational structure of these international operations.
Crews of thieves like Klepto's are the bottom of the pyramid.
Once they steal a car, I'm told they want to get rid of it as soon as possible.
But how?
And to whom?
That's what I'm itching to uncover; the next levels of the pyramid.
You dropped off the cars today at the parking lot, what happens to those cars?
KLEPTO: Yes.
Well, right now, the guys are gonna go clean 'em up and then they're gonna go...
MARIANA: What do you mean by clean them up?
KLEPTO: That's my expertise.
MARIANA: After years of success running a crew of thieves,
Klepto's career in stolen cars has actually progressed.
He's now also working in a position that's known as, "The Fence."
How did you learn how to do that?
KLEPTO: Since I was a little kid, working at body shops, you know,
family members, stealing other cars, you learn tricks of the trade.
MARIANA: The Fence is the key middleman in the operation.
It's his job to handle the logistics of laundering a stolen car to disguise
the fact that it's stolen.
And then what happens after that?
KLEPTO: Um, the LoJacks.
So they won't track them.
MARIANA: The GPS? KLEPTO: Yes.
MARIANA: So you have somebody who knows how to do that?
KLEPTO: Yes.
MARIANA: Locate the GPS, remove it.
And then what happens after that?
KLEPTO: We change the numbers. MARIANA: The VIN numbers?
KLEPTO: Yes.
MARIANA: You have another person who knows how to change VIN numbers?
KLEPTO: Yeah.
MARIANA: The Vehicle Identification Number,
or VIN,
is a unique lifetime ID born from the moment a car rolls out of the factory.
Klepto doesn't reveal how they change the VINs,
but once a new VIN number is installed,
they'll forge new title and registration documents to match.
And how much do you get paid per car?
KLEPTO: Just depends on the car, like the...
MARIANA: So the Mercedes for tonight, how much?
KLEPTO: About $30,000. MARIANA: $30,000.
KLEPTO: Yeah.
MARIANA: At each step in the process,
Klepto pays off the players involved.
KLEPTO: The key costs me four.
MARIANA: $4,000 for the key? KLEPTO: Yeah.
MARIANA: 3,000 to each of the thieves.
2,000 to the VIN forger,
1,000 to the wheelman who disables the GPS.
So it's that profitable that you can still make money while paying all these people?
KLEPTO: Yes, I can.
MARIANA: Meaning for a car like the Mercedes,
after paying off the crew,
he'll bank around $12,000.
KLEPTO: It's sold to the buyer that's asking for it.
They send it into the container.
You'll never see it again.
MARIANA: The car transfers hands to the final player on
the US side of the network,
The Shipper.
MARIANA: I meet back up with Number One,
who I know has experience at this level of the operation.
Over the years, he says he's made these drops many, many times.
MARIANA: Where were the containers going?
MARIANA: Do you know where exactly?
MARIANA: Number One agrees to drive me to the location
where he'd rendezvous with the shippers but warns me that
this hand-off is still the most dangerous in the process.
NUMBER ONE: Right here where this car's parked in front of that gate.
MARIANA: Yeah.
NUMBER ONE: That's where we used to pull up and drive in there,
put the car in the containers and then they leave there.
MARIANA: So the containers would be here waiting?
NUMBER ONE: If they said 10:00 at night,
then we'd meet them there 10:00 at night.
Any one of these trucks could be in the process of doing that right now.
MARIANA: Oh my God.
We have no way of knowing if thieves will be packing
these containers with stolen cars tonight.
But if they are, it's definitely not safe to stick around.
NUMBER ONE: See that car is still here.
It's dangerous like that because we don't know exactly what they're doing.
MARIANA: Right.
And if they see us around here with cameras.
NUMBER ONE: Yeah, exactly.
You don't ask questions when somebody's standing there with M16s, AK47s.
MARIANA: They were armed, the people running the business?
Weren't you scared?
MARIANA: I press Number One about who are the kingpins of these car rings but
he either doesn't know or won't say.
So I do what any good journalist does, I follow the money.
To the port in Newark, where there's one final hurdle
standing in these smugglers' way.
Oh.
OFFICER: Oh, that's a nice one.
OFFICER 2: Oh, is it there?
MARIANA: Wow! That's crazy.
♪ ♪
(snaps)
MARIANA: Oh.
OFFICER: Oh, that's a nice one.
That's a beautiful Jeep right there.
MARIANA: Wow. OFFICER 2: Pop the other door.
MARIANA: Wow.
So is this possibly a stolen car?
OFFICER: Yes. OFFICER 2: Possibly.
MARIANA: Per chance, a stolen vehicle?
OFFICER: Absolutely. OFFICER 2: Very good chance.
MARIANA: A very good chance?
OFFICER: Two in there. MARIANA: Two?
OFFICER: See, Mercedes-Benz.
OFFICER 2: Oh, there's a, there it is.
OFFICER 3: A Mercedes-Benz.
MARIANA: So there's a Mercedes-Benz in front, there's a Jeep here.
OFFICER: Brand new, 350. MARIANA: Wow, brand new.
They're both brand new cars.
OFFICER: So here we have a couple of ships.
MARIANA: The US Customs and Border Protection's main focus
is to intercept contraband coming into the United States,
not heading outbound.
It's just row after row after row here.
OFFICER: Thousands of containers.
This is the largest port on the East Coast.
MARIANA: They estimate that they're only able to inspect
a small fraction of cars leaving the United States.
So that's a VIN number?
OFFICER: This is the VIN number right here on the dash.
MARIANA: Which is good news for the car theft rings
I've been investigating.
OFFICER 2: It's coming up as a positive.
MARIANA: Positive what, stolen?
OFFICER 2: We've got a positive stolen, yeah.
MARIANA: Wow.
So it's immediate, you can tell.
OFFICER: Right away.
MARIANA: If you look inside, you can still see there's
a cell phone charger inside.
OFFICER: Yeah.
MARIANA: So you can see some of the personal belongings of
the person whose vehicle this belonged to.
OFFICER 2: Right out the driveway.
MARIANA: Right out the driveway, yeah.
So does a car like this, now that you've found it's stolen,
and you know eventually who the owner was,
does it go back to the owner or what happens?
OFFICER 2: Well, the insurance had already made the payout,
so this just goes back to the insurance company.
MARIANA: I kind of feel bad for the owner of the car who, stolen.
OFFICER: Like this. MARIANA: Yeah.
And the fact that we're all standing on top of his car right now.
(laughter)
MARIANA: Once a vessel departs for international waters,
the cars that slip through have a much, much slimmer chance for recovery.
OFFICER: This was all the same container, four cars.
Ending with this, the Escalade.
They have it packed with personal effects.
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
OFFICER: There could be guns in here.
There could be all sorts of different contraband.
MARIANA: Right.
OFFICER: These three cars were in one container.
If you look, you got two of them that were salvage cars,
they're smashed up,
and then we had this here 2021 Land Rover.
Right there, it's a flag for me.
MARIANA: Why?
OFFICER: Something, it's out of place.
You're gonna put a 2021 Land Rover in with two wrecks
where it might get damaged?
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
How many cars are exported from here every year?
OFFICER: Approximately 400,000 cars a year.
That 30,000 cars a month.
MARIANA: What, you go through all of them,
or how does that work?
OFFICER: It's impossible to go through all of them.
What was found last year was 310 stolen cars
out of this port.
I would like to think that's all of them, 310,
but that's not true.
It's really like finding a needle in a haystack.
MARIANA: So who's actually making money with all this?
OFFICER: Well, everybody involved is making money.
Who's making the most?
My guess is it's overseas.
MARIANA: It hadn't actually occurred to me before that
the real moneymakers of this operation aren't here in the US.
If there's truly that much money to be made overseas,
it begs the question,
"Who's atop this pyramid, and will I be able to find them?"
How soon after a car is stolen does it end up in a container like this?
OFFICER: If somebody is stealing it, let's call it New York,
put it in a container, next couple hours, it's,
it's on terminal ready to be departed.
MARIANA: Wow, could be that fast,
like the same day, next day, kinda.
OFFICER: Could be that day.
They steal 'em from outside, have 'em trucked into Jersey.
Put 'em in a container here.
And out they go to a number of different destinations.
MARIANA: One of the most popular destinations for stolen cars shipped from
the East Coast, is 5,000 miles across
the Atlantic Ocean in West Africa.
♪ ♪
♪ Love all the people ♪♪
MARIANA: In a developing nation,
owning a car can be synonymous with entry into the middle class.
♪ Mothers, fathers ♪
♪ Set for peace ♪♪
MARIANA: Nowhere is that more evident than Ghana,
home to one of the fastest-growing economies on the planet.
♪ All that has been done ♪
♪ Can change, can change, can change ♪♪
MARIANA: Walk around the capital, Accra, and you'll feel the energy,
opportunity is in the air.
♪ What he said ♪
♪ And on and on ♪
♪ Understand it ♪
♪ Loving mothers, loving fathers ♪♪
MARIANA: So it's a huge industry here in Ghana.
PETER: Yes.
MARIANA: "Peter" as we'll call him,
is a local investigative journalist who tells me that
rising incomes have opened the door to new black-markets like stolen cars.
What would happen if people found out you were helping us out?
PETER: That would mean that somebody putting an end to your life.
MARIANA: Is it that dangerous? PETER: It's very dangerous.
First of all, you're dealing with a society who,
where people don't want to even accept the fact that
the activity should be investigated in the first place.
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
So, you think actually that a lot of the people that buy these cars
don't know that they're stolen cars?
PETER: A lot of people don't know.
MARIANA: But some do? PETER: Some do.
But people who know don't care.
Because at the end of the day it's like, do you manufacture cars?
No.
So it's not as if the action is killing any local industry.
MARIANA: The vast majority of cars in Ghana are imported.
In fact, they're the number one imported item in the country.
PETER: People want to have more exotic lives, if you meet an old schoolmate.
MARIANA: Right.
PETER: They're able to judge you by the car you drive.
So everybody wants to drive a good car whether they are cheap or, you know um...
MARIANA: Stolen. PETER: Stolen.
And that's why black-market industries as far as cars is booming here.
MARIANA: So can you tell me more or less how the process works?
So the cars arrive.
PETER: So you find the people they are getting it from these Fraud Boys.
MARIANA: What are they called?
PETER: Fraud Boys.
MARIANA: So the guys involved in this car business,
they're called the Fraud Boys?
PETER: The Fraud Boys, yes.
MARIANA: And everybody knows about them?
It's well-known?
PETER: Everybody.
Everybody knows about them.
MARIANA: And is it all sort of the same syndicate then?
MARIANA: Peter says he can connect me to a contact who's inside their
tight knit circles, but it's unclear what role this person plays.
There's a guy who is somehow involved in this, uh,
car business who's agreed to talk to us.
So we're driving to what might be his house or his business,
I'm not sure.
The sun is actually going down really fast.
It's gonna get dark soon.
You don't wanna get stuck in these unknown roads in the middle of the night.
Well, that didn't happen.
Okay, I'll go out first.
Little did I know that I had just stepped inside
the nerve center of the entire operation.
♪ ♪
MARIANA: I learned that there are criminal groups behind
the stolen car game here in Ghana.
They are known as Fraud Boys.
(car horns honking)
I wanted to meet them face-to-face and find out who's pulling the strings.
♪ I guess they ♪
♪ I guess they can ♪♪
MARIANA: And if you can put your mask up again, sorry.
♪ I guess they ♪♪
MARIANA: So how do you wanna be called?
MARIANA: Shadow Walker? SHADOW WALKER: Yes.
MARIANA: Is that your online name?
SHADOW WALKER: Yeah, that's my online name.
MARIANA: In an apartment on the outskirts of Accra,
I connect with one of these infamous Fraud Boys.
What, what is it exactly that you do?
MARIANA: And what I found was the heart of the entire operation.
MARIANA: Okay.
MARIANA: Using an anonymous browser called Tor,
he accesses the dark web and logs into
underground hacker forums where
almost any product is listed for sale.
Oh, cocaine.
Colombian cocaine on the list.
SHADOW WALKER: Yes, of course. MARIANA: Or crack.
MARIANA: Oh, somebody's selling this?
SHADOW WALKER: They, they are selling.
MARIANA: If you've ever received an email from your favorite retailer
apologizing for a huge data breach.
REPORTER (over TV): A massive cyber-attack affecting nearly
50 million Facebook users...
REPORTER 2 (over TV): More than 100 million Capital One credit cards...
MARIAN: It's possible that your identity and credit card information is
being sold at an underground hacker forum just like his.
Is there tons of these for sale?
MARIANA: For $15. SHADOW WALKER: Yeah, for $15.
MARIANA: What? SHADOW WALKER: Yeah.
MARIANA: For a pittance,
paid anonymously in crypto currency,
criminals can buy your credit card info and
load it onto a fresh card.
And then what do you do, uh, with all that information?
MARIANA: In the US? SHADOW WALKER: Yes.
MARIANA: With a stolen credit card and
a fake ID, these guys can walk into any car rental location
and drive off with a car that will wind up 5,000 miles away
on the streets of Accra.
No broken windows.
No fake key fobs.
No carjacking.
Clean and efficient.
It's right about now that I truly grasp who I'm standing next to.
He isn't some entry level page,
but rather a technological wizard who binds
the whole operation together.
And he has one more trick up his sleeve.
So this is a car, let's say, coming from New York to Ghana?
SHADOW WALKER: Yes.
MARIANA: The import fee. SHADOW WALKER: Yes.
MARIANA: Import duties can cost up to 20%
of the market value of a car.
So a brand-new Range Rover
valued at $100,000 would be taxed 20 grand.
MARIANA: So you can hack into the customs service at the harbor.
SHADOW WALKER: Yeah.
MARIANA: I'm blown away by their methods.
In addition to their American contacts who
steal cars the old-fashioned way,
these sophisticated Ghanaian operators have found other,
more ingenious ways to swipe our beloved rides.
It all points to the kingpin at the top of the pyramid and
I want to meet whoever that is, face-to-face.
Do you know anyone who's involved in other parts of the car business?
MARIANA: I keep pushing, and after some persistence,
a contact finally leads me to the breakthrough
I've been searching for, a meeting with a mastermind.
We're actually very close to the location.
It seems like a really nice neighborhood here, right?
There's a bunch of big houses.
MARIANA: Okay.
MARIANA: Is this someone that we should trust?
♪ ♪
(knocking on door)
(knocks)
♪ ♪
(knocking on door)
(knocks)
MARIANA: Hi.
Um, thank you for meeting us.
Um, what, what is this?
What car is this?
IVAN: This is a Mercedes-Benz C250.
MARIANA: It's a nice car.
And it's from, it's stolen?
IVAN: Uh, yeah, this came from the States.
MARIANA: Do you know where in the States?
IVAN: I have no idea where in the States where it's coming from.
MARIANA: Like many of these underworld first dates,
the vibe is tense, suspicious.
He asked to be called Ivan,
and I can sense that he's sizing me up.
When did this arrive in Ghana?
IVAN: Two, three months ago.
MARIANA: Two, three months ago.
And do you have people interested already?
IVAN: This happens to be in a garage, so.
MARIANA: Oh, so this is in a car dealership, what we call in the US, in a garage.
IVAN: Yes, yes, this was in a car dealership.
MARIANA: So it's one of several there?
IVAN: Like this is what I have available at the moment.
MARIANA: Can I go inside? IVAN: Yeah, sure.
Be my guest.
MARIANA: So crazy to think of that just a couple of months ago,
this car was in the US belonging to somebody else.
What other cars came in the same sort of shipment as this one?
MARIANA: The mood starts to relax.
I feel like he's warming up to me.
He tells me that his group is one of the bigger operations in Accra,
and that they buy stolen cars in bulk shipments.
How much did you pay for this one?
IVAN: This one? MARIANA: Yeah.
MARIANA: I know, but how much?
I just want to get a sense of the amount.
IVAN: So...
MARIANA: But ultimately he plays coy.
In spite of my efforts to get more information from him,
he ended up refusing to answer most of my questions.
How do I open this?
So I decide to poke around and
see if I can learn anything more about this mystery car.
Oh, and this is because the GPS has been cut out?
MARIANA: Wow, so check this out, this is tampered with.
What's in here?
Is this the Red Lobster?
Do you have Red Lobster here?
IVAN: No. MARIANA: Oh, my God.
Virginia!
MARIANA: It's still...
MARIANA: I will, I will.
So we're close to knowing that at least the person was in Virginia.
MARIANA: You tried to hide that as soon as possible.
He doesn't want to really show that.
I won't say the city in Virginia.
There was also a city in Virginia.
I didn't say that.
(phone ringing)
IVAN: Uh, just a minute.
I don't know.
MARIANA: Maybe it's somebody who wants to buy this car.
IVAN: Okay.
(laughs)
MARIANA: He's driving off.
He left before I could get what I wanted, a confession.
A tell-all interview about the whole stolen car operation
from one of the big players.
The stolen Mercedes-Benz that
got here just a few months ago from the US.
I'm dying to know more about this car's history.
Who owned it?
Do they miss it?
And do they have any idea where their car is now?
Back in America, I get some answers about this mystery car
from Detective Paula Brunetto
with the Connecticut State Police.
She's been investigating car theft rings for decades.
PAULA: Yeah, I looked at the VIN and, um, so it's from a 2014 Mercedes-Benz
that was involved in a serious crash which
caused it to be a total loss.
No one's going to drive this car.
You're telling me that you saw this car in Africa being driven,
and it was not smashed up, right?
MARIANA: No, it's a beautiful Mercedes-Benz.
PAULA: Okay.
So the car you saw was probably stolen.
MARIANA: With a VIN belonging...
PAULA: With a VIN number from this one that was totaled in a horrific crash in Florida.
MARIANA: A stolen car's VIN number would be flagged by authorities,
but a totaled car's VIN wouldn't.
So there is no way that the VIN on that car that I saw was
the real VIN number for that car?
PAULA: I very, very much doubt that the car you saw in Africa
was the same exact car.
The VIN number on that car was re-VINed and
is being driven around in another country.
MARIANA: With some clever coordination,
the Fraud Boys can swap out the VIN of a stolen car,
with the same make and model that they pick up at a salvage auction.
MARIANA: There's nothing to worry about?
MARIANA: It raises a question about who's really calling
the shots in these operations.
And who's making most of the money.
I needed to get some answers,
so I asked Ivan if he'd be willing to meet me again.
In our first meeting,
he didn't divulge much information,
and it's rare to get a follow-up meeting with a top dog,
but I'm hoping it will happen.
I know there's a lot more he's not telling me.
We were actually told to wait in this, uh, parking lot by this church.
Okay.
This is where he's supposed to meet us.
I wasn't sure if he'd show up.
MARIANA: But now, it's go-time.
♪ ♪
MARIANA: I managed to convince one of the top Fraud Boys
in the stolen car game in Ghana to meet me for a rare second interview.
I'm hoping this will be my chance for a tell-all,
to see the stolen car world through his eyes.
And here's another club and here you go, more fancy cars.
You've got more Mercedes.
IVAN: Mm-hmm.
MARIANA: He takes me to an area known for nightlife in Accra.
A place where he and fellow Fraud Boys come to woo potential clients.
Mercedes, Mercedes are big here, huh?
IVAN: Mercedes... MARIANA: Maserati.
Do you think that's stolen?
MARIANA: You, really?
MARIANA: How much money do you think we're talking about?
MARIANA: Up until this point,
I had assumed that the American criminals were
the masterminds of these operations and that West Africa prove to be
a useful place to offload their merchandise.
MARIANA: So who's making most of the money?
MARIANA: But he's finally spilling the beans and as it turns out,
it's actually the opposite.
So you make most of the money?
MARIANA: The Fraud Boys are not just the buyers,
they're the masterminds of the operation.
And have found willing American criminals to do their dirty work.
The chain is sort of separate from...
MARIANA: Cut off, so that you don't know what happens on the other side...
MARIANA: Right, and that protects the whole enterprise.
MARIANA: It's guys like Ivan in West Africa, who are actually
at the top of the pyramid in these international car theft rings.
IVAN: Everybody wants cheap stuff in Africa.
MARIANA: So even rich people buy one that's cheap.
MARIANA: Oh, yeah, that's a deal.
MARIANA: But that, wouldn't that raise flags, a car that's a third of.
MARIANA: But at least it would raise some sort of suspicion, right?
For the buyer, wouldn't they think for a second, "Oh, maybe this is."
MARIANA: So it goes really deep.
MARIANA: The Fraud Boys, like the name suggests,
are always on the lookout for the next opportunity,
the next scam.
MARIANA: Right.
MARIANA: Their tentacles stretch into
all sorts of criminal activities.
Money laundering, romance scams, gold fraud,
they're part of a growing syndicate
that's way bigger than I'd imagined.
Do you feel sorry for the people that woke up one morning and
they don't have their cars outside their houses?
MARIANA: Okay but isn't there a little part of you that thinks,
"The poor guy doesn't have a car.
Maybe he, like, saved all his money to buy this car?"
MARIANA: Right, it's far away.
MARIANA: With so much distance between the steal and the sell,
it's not hard to imagine feeling disconnected.
He might not feel guilty,
but others do.
Do you ever feel bad for the people?
MARIANA: Do you feel bad at all?
KLEPTO: No, I need the money just probably badder,
more than worse than they do.
MARIANA: No matter how you feel about
the justifications for stealing these cars.
The truth is, as long as the orders keep coming from this side of the Atlantic,
the entire underground pipeline is bound to keep thriving.
There's no real deterrent to stop doing this, right?
MARIANA: How many cars do you estimate are being stolen every day in this city?
KLEPTO: Oh, hundreds.
(sirens wailing)
Hundreds.
I mean, we don't just steal them here.
MARIANA: They are all across the country?
KLEPTO: Yeah, oh, yeah.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.