Some Jerks stole a $100,000+ Mercedes Right Off of the Lot

Picture: Pasco County Sherrif's Office

Auto theft is an all-too-common crime. And unlike most cases, this one happened right on the dealer lot, when two men were able to drive off with a new Mercedes in what may be a part of a larger Black Market scheme.

The car - a 2015 Mercedes S-550 had a price tag of $117,300 - essentially a small mortgage. When the two men spotted the vehicle, they worked their scheme and were able to nab the keyfob, replace it with a dummy key, and drive away. When police looked into the whole thing, it turned out that it wasn't these two's first rodeo:

From NBC News - West Chapel, Fla.:

"Cameras spotted the men lingering near the lot and that expensive Mercedes. “Key fobs were switched out with some dummy keys due to the keys being returned to the salesman and not working later on,” Det. Henderson said.
The men brought the fake fob with them.
Cameras caught them driving away in a car worth as much as a small house. The car has a tracking device, but so far, police haven’t picked up a signal.
“Usually these type of thefts are part of a larger organization crime. We see a lot out of (the) southeast, Miami area,” Henderson said."

Expanding on that organized crime element, high end cars like this, among others, like Range Rovers, BMWs and the like, are picked up by these large scheme organizations, and usually shipped off to other countries at a profit - and when I say profit, I mean gobbs of cash over what the cars are actually worth.

For example, scammers will take a $50,000 Porsche and sell it to some sucker in China for nearly three times what it's worth in the states. The scammer takes home an extra $100,000 and through these schemes, they are also able to cut through the red tape of import restrictions and tax tariffs which can amount to a quarter of the value of the car's price tag. As a result, the people who are actually allowed to sell these cars - the dealerships - can suffer from loss of profit and numerous penalties for selling cars that are intended to be exported. In fact, dealers that sell to exporters can be steeply penalized for doing so, normally resulting in things like charge-backs, revoked incentives and ultimately a decreased supply of vehicles from the factory. In turn, this can result in dealers missing their sales quotas which can compromise bonuses.



Bastards.