The thefts don\u2019t require much stealth: vehicles are rented in the U.S. by cartel operatives and then driven across the border. The exact number of vehicles is unknown. <\/p>\n
California sees significant theft, in part, because of its restrictive privacy laws on GPS tracking of rental vehicles, according to Sharky Laguana, owner of Bandago Van Rentals based in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791725049_489_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A Dodge Ram pickup truck leaves the LAX Rental Car Center on Sept. 13. Such trucks are a favorite target of Mexican cartels stealing U.S. rental vehicles. <\/p>\n
(Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Unlike other states, California requires that rental agencies wait to turn on GPS tracking until the vehicle return deadline has passed and the renter has been contacted by the company. By then, most stolen vehicles are deep in Mexican territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia allows criminals to take advantage of the fact that we are not allowed to see where the vehicle is until it\u2019s too late,\u201d Laguana said. The American Car Rental Assn., a trade group, said in a statement that California laws make it harder to recover vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers are reporting a sharp increase in rental vehicle theft from California into Mexico, where California law uniquely restricts rental fleet operators from accessing technology to protect and recover their assets,\u201d the association said in a statement. \u201cThe result is millions of dollars in annual theft-related costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early this year, criminal groups stole 10 new Ram pickup trucks from Oakland, Los Angeles and Las Vegas airports, according to private investigators. The trucks ended up in Jalisco state in regions controlled by the violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.<\/p>\n
The private investigators recovered one truck with help from the Mexican army. Security forces also seized a cache of Browning and Barrett .50-caliber weapons. <\/p>\n
In another haul this year, thieves stole six 2026 model Jeep Wranglers from Oakland and Las Vegas. Four have been recovered so far. Private investigators believe the vehicles were destined for the Sinaloa Cartel.<\/p>\n
The same investigators received requests last week to recover a dozen Ram trucks tracked to Sinaloa and seven more in Durango state.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the cartel, it is the cheapest way for them to do business,\u201d said Kevin Carter, owner of Collateral Consultants, a rental car recovery company in Texas. \u201cThere\u2019s no sense in them buying a car when they could rent one for a few hundred bucks, and it\u2019s theirs forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with California, Texas and Arizona are the other top targets for Mexican criminal groups.<\/p>\n
One tactic involves cartels hiring people in the U.S. via social media to rent a vehicle for five days, get the damage waiver that includes covering the car if it is stolen, and then leave the keys in the vehicle still parked in the rental parking lot. An operative arrives, gets in the car and drives it south to Mexico.<\/p>\n
In other cases, thieves will rent the vehicle online or at a kiosk using a stolen identity, said Mejia, the LAPD officer. Since the pandemic, it\u2019s not unusual for people to wear protective masks, so the renter will wear a mask to hide their identity from the kiosk camera. \u201cThey know it won\u2019t be traced back to them,\u201d Mejia said.<\/p>\n
The process for reporting a stolen rental vehicle varies from state to state, but it is often tedious. It can take three days after the vehicle has gone missing for a company to prepare a demand letter to the renter seeking return of the vehicle. Such notification is required before a vehicle can be reported stolen, and it can take another two days to send the letter by certified mail.<\/p>\n
Depending on the state, a company might have to wait up to nine days to report the theft to police. Only then can it appear on the FBI-managed U.S. National Crime Incident Database, where stolen vehicles are reported.<\/p>\n
More days will pass before the VIN number is registered in Mexico\u2019s stolen vehicle database. If the car or truck was rented in one state, set to return in another state and crossed into Mexico via a third, the coordination required between three state law enforcement agencies can make timely recovery of the vehicle even more complicated.<\/p>\n
Many vehicles are never registered in the U.S. stolen car database. Carter, from Collateral Consultants, said that of the approximately 1 million cases he has seen in his 15 years recovering rental vehicles in the U.S. and elsewhere, fewer than half made it into the U.S. database.<\/p>\n
![\"Merchants](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791725050_751_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Merchants in Tijuana sell religious icons and Mexican flags to vehicles crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. <\/p>\n
(Carlos Moreno \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
A vehicle is not officially considered stolen until it appears in the registry. Large rental agencies often don\u2019t bother recovering vehicles that disappear across the border, and consider the loss the cost of doing business, Carter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a calculated risk to most of the big companies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While insurance companies insure rental agencies against vehicle damage, they do not cover theft, according to Luguana of Bandago Van Rentals. Most agencies are self-insured, meaning the loss of a vehicle cuts into their bottom line, he said.<\/p>\n
Though sometimes the target is a single vehicle, authorities have also uncovered larger theft operations.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Colorado attorney general\u2019s office indicted 17 people associated with the Sinaloa Cartel, accusing them of stealing 190 new Ford F150s and luxury suburbans near the Denver airport. The cartel operatives drove the stolen vehicles, valued at nearly $10 million, to Mexico, according to court documents, and exchanged them for cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine. <\/p>\n
In the Texas border city of Laredo, Deputy Police Chief Timothy Tubbs said he has seen a 50% increase in the theft of rental vehicles \u2014 about 10 a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have seen how easy it is to steal a rental car, and the process it takes to report it,\u201d Tubbs said of criminal groups. And the vehicles are supporting drug trafficking into the U.S., he said. \u201cThese stolen vehicles empower the cartels,\u201d Tubbs said. \u201cIt is another tool for them to continue their smuggling and continue their violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Vehicles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791725050_963_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Vehicles cross into Tijuana, Mexico, from San Diego. Rental vehicles stolen by Mexican cartels are rented in the United States, often in California, and then driven across the border. <\/p>\n
(Carlos Moreno \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
Once the vehicles are in Mexico, operatives approach corrupt Mexican officials and change out the U.S. license plates for Mexican plates and register the vehicles on Mexico\u2019s online car registry platform, according to car recovery experts. <\/p>\n
Authorities install a chip that is scanned by machines along federal highways. The chips are supposed to flag stolen cars and trucks, but because the new plates are valid, the vehicles are never listed as stolen.<\/p>\n
In the United States, stolen vehicles are far more likely to be identified, experts said, for a variety of reasons \u2014 a routine maintenance check or a scan by a highway license plate camera could trigger an alert. But once a stolen car arrives in Mexico, it essentially vanishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt crosses that border, it is a brand-new car,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n
Cartels steal more cars and trucks when turf wars break out because they require more resources, one U.S. law enforcement official said. And in recent years, cartels have increasingly splintered as leaders have been arrested. <\/p>\n
One of the more dramatic examples is the Sinaloa cartel, founded by the now imprisoned Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n. His sons, known as Los Chapitos, are fighting a rival faction for control of the criminal group.<\/p>\n
The ruthless Jalisco cartel has fought to expand its territory to Michoac\u00e1n and Chiapas states, warring with groups from Baja California and fighting wars on multiple fronts as it seeks to expand its presence.<\/p>\n
Though many stolen vehicles disappear, some are recovered. In Guerrero state last November, the Mexican army seized a Toyota TRD Pro and other vehicles loaded with high-caliber weapons and nearly half a ton of meth.<\/p>\n
According to sources familiar with another recovery, in August a member of the Jalisco New Generation cartel went to the border city of Mexicali to pick up a tractor trailer with a 2026 Cadillac Escalade and a late-model Ram hidden inside, apparently to evade detection system until they could be outfitted with Mexican plates.<\/p>\n
But private investigators hired to recover the Cadillac began tracking it. They asked not to identify their tracking methods to avoid tipping off criminals. The investigators notified the Mexican army, providing the license plate number. <\/p>\n
Their tracking method allowed them to see the Cadillac was on the move, passing through toll booths and military checkpoints, but without setting off alarms. At one checkpoint, National Guard soldiers opened the trailer and, seeing a wall of hay bales, let it pass.<\/p>\n
At the next checkpoint, however, soldiers pulled back the bales to reveal the Cadillac and the Ram. The driver said he was to be paid nearly $1,500 and admitted the cars were bound for drug lords.<\/p>\n
Fisher is a special correspondent. This article was co-published with Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom. Reporting for this article was supported with a grant by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Mexican cartels are stealing cars and trucks from U.S. rental agencies at an alarming rate, spiriting thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[191846,7,283,191845,1804,65555,191848,48,52,51,47,50,49,2457,156851,191847,238,6187,2281,178,72],"class_list":["post-492635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-border-state","tag-california","tag-car","tag-cartel-operative","tag-company","tag-criminal-group","tag-kevin-carter","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mexico","tag-private-investigator","tag-rental-vehicle","tag-theft","tag-truck","tag-u-s","tag-vehicle","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}