Mainers need to be wary of scam artists peddling stolen vehicles.
That’s the message from the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles after its detectives recently cracked cases involving stolen vehicles.
In one case, a Mainer discovered two $80,000 GMC pickup trucks had been stolen when he went to get titles for them. The vehicle identification numbers on those trucks had been ground off and VINs from similar vehicles had been salvaged and applied to them, according to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Such “cloned vehicles” can be hard to detect as stolen.
That led investigators to Texas, where authorities uncovered a large stolen vehicle ring.
In a second case, an older Maine woman was paid $500 by a friend of a friend, an unknown man from New York, to get a title for an allegedly stolen Aston Martin, a luxury British sports car, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles said.
During the investigation, authorities found four other potentially stolen vehicles with swapped VINs at the suspect’s home on Long Island.
“We have unfortunately seen an uptick in these types of cases over the last few years,” Derek Dinsmore, director of the BMV Enforcement Services Division, said Thursday. “Sadly these instances result in costs of thousands of dollars to Maine consumers who are not reimbursed by their insurance company or bank. Buyers need to beware of thieves and scam artists trafficking in stolen vehicles.”
