{"id":173187,"date":"2026-04-22T21:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173187\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T21:00:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:00:06","slug":"six-charged-in-conspiracy-to-steal-vehicles-from-d-c-and-pennsylvania-and-transport-them-across-state-lines-and-as-far-as-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173187\/","title":{"rendered":"Six charged in conspiracy to steal vehicles from D.C. and Pennsylvania and transport them across state lines, and as far as Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six people are accused of operating an international vehicle theft ring that sent stolen cars from the Northeast as far off as Africa, officials said.<\/p>\n

On April 22, 2026, a 15-count indictment was unsealed, charging the following individuals with conspiracy to\u00a0possess, sell, and transport stolen motor vehicles:<\/p>\n

Jacob Hernandez, 29, of Los AngelesDustin Wetzel, 23, of Woodbridge, VirginiaJames Young, 23, of Hyattsville, MarylandKhobe David, 24, of Upper Marlboro, MarylandChance Clark, 25, of Waldorf, Maryland<\/p>\n

A sixth person has been charged but is still at large and considered a fugitive. This person\u2019s indictment remains sealed.<\/p>\n

Officials say that these individuals stole\u00a0at least 20\u00a0cars in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area\u00a0and Pennsylvania,\u00a0transported the vehicles\u00a0across state\u00a0lines, and\u00a0sold the vehicles to\u00a0buyers\u00a0in\u00a0the United States\u00a0and\u00a0the African nation of Ghana.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, District of Columbia (Stolen cars linked to the ring on shipping containers in Baltimore destined for Ghana)<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the allegations in the\u00a0indictment,\u00a0members of the conspiracy caused the vehicles\u00a0\u2013 primarily\u00a0recently manufactured\u00a0Honda Civics and\u00a0CRVs\u00a0and Acura TLXs and RDXs\u00a0\u2013 to\u00a0be stolen and then transported them to storage locations that included a parking garage\u00a0in Southeast\u00a0Washington\u00a0D.C.\u00a0At the garage, co-conspirators\u00a0allegedly\u00a0disguised the appearances of the stolen cars by swapping license plates and obscuring Vehicle Identification Numbers.\u00a0Before transporting the vehicles, the defendants disabled the stolen vehicles\u2019 GPS and Bluetooth capabilities to inhibit detection,\u201d the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Columbia said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of this investigation, a search warrant was served April 21 at\u00a0an automobile storage facility in Decatur, Georgia, believed to be connected to this car theft operation.<\/p>\n

Investigators are also working to tie the six charged individuals to the theft of more than 100 vehicles in the District of Columbia and more than 30 vehicles in Prince George\u2019s County, Maryland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This case was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department, the\u00a0U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Columbia\u2019s Criminal Investigations Unit,\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0FBI\u00a0Washington Field Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six people are accused of operating an international vehicle theft ring that sent stolen cars from the Northeast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-173187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}