“Anything that can drive through tough terrain to get away from Border Patrol so they can move dope,” Mejia said.
Along with Chevy Suburbans, Ford Raptors and Toyota pickups, the vehicles of choice include Cadillac Escalades and BMW SUVs, according to people whose job is to recover them. To battle rival cartels or authorities, criminal groups sometimes convert the trucks into mutant tanks, adding heavy ballistic-proof steel plating, firing ports and gun mounts.
The thefts don’t require much stealth: vehicles are rented in the U.S. by cartel operatives and then driven across the border.
“California allows criminals to take advantage of the fact that we are not allowed to see where the vehicle is until it’s too late,” Laguana said. The American Car Rental Assn., a trade group, said in a statement that California laws make it harder to recover vehicles.
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.
The same investigators received requests last week to recover a dozen Ram trucks tracked to Sinaloa and seven more in Durango state.
“For the cartel, it is the cheapest way for them to do business,” said Kevin Carter, owner of Collateral Consultants, a rental car recovery company in Texas. “There’s no sense in them buying a car when they could rent one for a few hundred bucks, and it’s theirs forever.”
Along with California, Texas and Arizona are the other top targets for Mexican criminal groups.
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.
In 2024, the Colorado attorney general’s 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.
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 — about 10 a month.
Hooray for Libtard states! PHEW!
ReplyDeleteLet me get this straight. Are you advocating for rental car companies to be able to track the movements of hundreds of thousands of lawful renters? Holly Flock Camera Batman!
DeleteI have a far simpler idea. Change the terms of rental agreement so that vehicles rented are not allowed to cross the border. Hertz, Avis, etc. can do that with a simple change to their agreement and no law abiding citizen has to be tracked in their lawful use of the vehicle. This is already standard practice in many places
you're making shit up, and not reading what was written, or not understanding it... as sarcasm.
DeleteNo one advocated for rental car companies to track the renters, they ALREADY DO THAT. Don't believe me? https://autoskyus.com/blogs/do-rental-cars-have-gps-trackers-guide-to-tracking-rental-vehicle/
Hell, I already posted about that a couple years ago.
That's a done thing, they OWN the cars, and they WILL track them. I'm fine with that... I would want to know where my property is too.. and that has NOTHING to do with Flock Cameras Batman, Flock is the govt tracking private property, and the rental cars tracking their cars is legit owner tracking their property. That's cool.
After all, they do need to recover them too often from people who don't return them.
So, no simpler idea needed, just pick up on the sarcasm.
Also, the rental agreements ALREADY state, clearly, as does the verbal when renting, that the rentals are not allowed out of the country. The cartels, certainly, are not agreeing to abide by rules.
So, like I said, the rental car GPS trackers COULD be used to alert the Border Patrol at the border crossing, to rental cars, and they COULD prevent the rentals from leaving the country.