A luxury automobile theft ring allegedly responsible for stealing 48 high-end vehicles with a street value of approximately $2.4 million — has been shut down following a sweeping 18-month investigation.
Eighteen people were charged in five separate indictments and three criminal complaints. The defendants are accused of stealing nearly 50 automobiles — including
a Bentley Continental GTC Convertible (valued at $196,000) and a Mercedes Benz s550
4matic (valued at $105,000), as well as Audis, BMWs Range Rovers, Jeep Grand Cherokees and a Porsche Panamera, all from Queens County and elsewhere in the tri-state area. The thieves allegedly changed the vehicle identification (VIN) numbers and
then registered them with “washed” titles — subsequently using “brokers” to sell them-taking orders for certain makes and models to be stolen.
Queens DA Brown’s office dubbed the Operation Title Wave, where defendants brazenly shopped for high-end luxury vehicles as they received orders-plucking the automobiles right out of dealerships.
Members of the ring all had “special” roles in the organization. In summary, thieves stole the vehicles and fed the stolen cars to the brokers; taggers supplied packages for stolen cars that included VIN stickers and license plates; brokers who obtained cars from thieves and sold them on the black market; title washers who provided forged titles for the stolen vehicles; and black market dealers who sold the tagged and washed vehicles to local and out-of-state buyers.
The criminals used GPS to track luxury vehicles and then burglarized businesses and unlocked vehicles for keys to drive the cars away. Some defendants are alleged to have narcotics dealings as well.
The defendants were charged with enterprise corruption, second- and third-degree grand larceny, second- and third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, fourth- and fifth-degree conspiracy, illegal possession of a vehicle identification number, forgery of a vehicle identification number and second-degree forgery. Those charged with enterprise corruption face up to 25 years in prison if convicted and other defendants face maximum sentences of between seven and fifteen years in prison if convicted.
Detectives also busted a narcotics trafficking component of the ring in which one of the defendants, Albert Natanov acted as the leader of the separate operation from which law enforcement officials recovered more than 20 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of approximately $1 million.
By Samantha Geary
