Feds: Mexican motorcycle club used stolen key data to fuel massive Jeep heist

Enlarge (credit: US Attorney's Office)

Three summers ago, law enforcement in San Diego County faced a mystery. How was it that dozens of Jeep Wranglers were being brazenly stolen in the dead of night, with no broken glass to be found? How was it that no one heard the car alarms sounding? More fundamentally, who was doing it?

On September 26, 2014, investigators caught a break. A woman in Rancho Bernardo, California, reported that her 2014 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon was stolen from her own driveway overnight, and she had video evidence. When investigators reviewed the footage, they saw three men disable the engine before using a key and a mysterious "handheld device" to quickly get into the car and drive off. The entire heist took just a few minutes.

Based on this footage, law enforcement sent Chrysler a list of 20 stolen Jeeps and asked if anyone had requested duplicate keys. Duplicates had been requested for nearly all of them via a dealer in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments