The suspects stole mostly Camaros and Corvettes from a dozen different cities.
Behind masks on a rainy day in March, two of the suspects first stole a Chevrolet SS from a gym parking lot in Plano. It was all caught on the victim’s dash camera video.
Between March and April, Detective Stephen Howell says the five suspects stole 29 cars, mainly Camaros and Corvettes valued at $1.1 million from apartment and gym parking lots in more than a dozen cities.
“Essentially, they’re doing their intel work. They want to know where that vehicle is and where it’s going to be parked later at night to better ensure the fact that they can come back and it’s going to be located there and they’re not wasting their time,” Howell said.
Detectives say that after the suspects took off in the cars they stole, they used the cars to post content on Instagram.
The videos show the suspects doing donuts in the middle of the street and joyriding before they eventually sold the cars.
“They made about $150,000 in two months,” Howell said.
Howell says the suspects sold the cars for about $5,000 each, raking up cash and content. One video shows a suspect behind the wheel of a stolen Corvette.
“We continued our investigation to figure out that they were renting storage units to store the stolen vehicles in,” Howell said.
Surveillance video shows when Plano police closed in on two of the suspects at the storage units. They were later able to recover several of the stolen vehicles.
The arrests follow the Plano police’s bust of another luxury car theft ring in July, which involved a Rolls-Royce. The two cases are not connected, but Plano police believe more people are involved in the recent thefts of Camaros and Corvettes.
“They’re going after that because of the ability that the key programmer has, the ability to take those easier at an easier rate,” Howell said.
While Plano police report that car thefts are down overall in the city, they recommend that Chevrolet owners update their software to help prevent their cars from being stolen.