Anyone currently awaiting delivery of a high-end automobile in South Florida can sleep a little easier tonight
Local authorities made three arrests last week in connection to a criminal ring that has been stealing exotic cars in the region, WSVN 7 News Miami. The accused are said to have broken into computer systems to reroute delivery locations of the stolen vehicles.
The arrests were made as part of an investigation that was launched after a Rolls-Royce Dawn belonging to Nader Eldamouni was stolen while being transported between Miami Beach and Michigan. Police found that thieves were targeting dispatchers and transporters that work with car delivery services. They infiltrate their computer systems, change the delivery location, and then use paperwork that looks legitimate to take possession of the vehicles. This method, CarScoops notes, has been used to steal everything from the Dawn to a Ferrari 488 Pista.
Once authorities were aware of how the scheme worked, a controlled delivery was set up in the city of Aventura. At the set time, three men pulled up in an unidentified Bentley and a Rolls-Royce Cullinan to pick up the keys to a Lamborghini Urus. After they were observed paying $700 for the delivery, officers moved in and arrested all three.
The three men have been identified as 41-year-old Yuriy Korotovskyy, 43-year-old Hrant Nazarian, and 53-year-old Arman Gevorgyan. Following the sting operation, the men were taken into custody and charged with grand theft, dealing in stolen property, and conspiracy to commit organized fraud. They are believed to be connected to Armenian and Russian brokers who reroute the deliveries.
Despite the arrests, Eldamouni’s Dawn has yet to be recovered.
If this all sounds a little familiar it’s because this method has been utilized to steal pricy automobiles several times over the last year. In June, a tech-savvy swindler, again in South Florida, hacked into a delivery service’s driver’s portal and used the information they accessed too to reroute delivery of a Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 and Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Then, in October, MLB star Kris Bryant’s Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica was stolen by a group of ne’er-do-wells who hacked into the systems of the delivery service he’d hired to transport the vehicle from Denver to Las Vegas. In recovering the supercar, authorities also uncovered another theft ring that was using fake documents and VIN switching to steal and traffic luxury vehicles.
