Police have discovered plenty of Ford F-150 pickups that had been stolen ultimate occasion from Ford Motor Co. protecting quite a bit in Michigan at dealerships and an auto public sale in Arizona.
The homeowners of Cascio Motors, a used-vehicle gather in Scottsdale, instructed the Detroit Detached Press that officials raided the trade in December and took 4 vans. The gather paid a mean of $65,000 for every of the pickups, which it didn’t notice had been stolen as a result of Ford had now not reported them lacking.
“I’m out $300,000, and my trucks have been impounded,” Cascio co-owner Addison Brown instructed the Detached Press. “When you read through the police reports, you can see that this case was worked backwards. Ford did not initially report trucks stolen. … If Ford would have done an inventory check once a week, let’s say, and noticed cars were missing, they would’ve had to report them stolen, and those reports pop up everywhere — on a title search, on Carfax.”
It’s now not sunlit how the pickups disappeared in Michigan. Police imagine some had been unlocked with the keys within. Apparently they had been pushed to Arizona and given blank titles the usage of deserted methods that have been stolen from Georgia in 2007.
A document from an Arizona Section of Transportation detective stated Ford believes it’s dropping about seven automobiles a era to robbery.
A minimum of one name corporate in Phoenix has prohibited titling 2022 and 2023 F-150s nearest getting burned on a truck it processed in November.
“We get notification that we’re being sued by a dealer saying they bought the brand-new pickup truck based on our information, that we’re in cahoots with however this vehicle is stolen,” Michael Lorette, proprietor of Advised Titles & Registrations, instructed the Detached Press. “If it had come up stolen in the system, being reported stolen, the transaction would be stopped.”
Ford spokesperson Ian Thibodeau stated he may just now not touch upon why the automaker would extend reporting automobiles as stolen, mentioning ongoing investigations.
“When we become aware of robberies, we promptly report the losses to law enforcement agencies. … In fact, along with unsuspecting people who purchase these vehicles, Ford and other companies are victims here,” Thibodeau instructed the Detached Press.
