A criminal indictment was unsealed in federal court in Charlotte, NC on August 23, 2023 charging five suspects with stealing dozens of high end luxury vehicles worth millions of dollars from dealerships located across the United States and in Charlotte. The indictment charges Dewanne White, 43, Garyka Bost, 24, Kevin Fields, 27, Hosea Hampton, 25, and Reginald Hill, 23, with conspiracy to transport, possess, and sell stolen vehicles in interstate commerce, and interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle. Some are also charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
According to allegations in the indictment, from 2021 to 2023, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to steal luxury vehicles worth millions of dollars from dealerships in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Arizona.
The suspects are accused of transporting the stolen vehicles back to Charlotte, NC and selling them locally at prices well below market value.
To maximize profits, the suspects are accused of stealing high value luxury vehicles made by Bentley, BMW, Cadillac, Land Rover, Porsche, and Mercedes-Benz, and other expensive models from Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, and other manufacturers, including Dodge Chargers.
Federal prosecutors say the suspects executed the thefts in a number of ways, in some instances they visited dealerships posing as customers interested in purchasing the vehicles.
And after pretending to test drive or inspect the vehicles, the suspects would allegedly swap the vehicles’ key fobs with similar ones and later use the stolen key fobs to steal the vehicles, federal officials say.
Other times, the indictment alleges that the suspects employed methods like “smash and grab” thefts, where they would break into dealerships and locate keys to the high-end vehicles, or break open lock boxes containing keys to luxury vehicles, and then drive the vehicles off the lot.
The indictment alleges that the defendants stole multiple vehicles simultaneously, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.
According to allegations in the indictment, once the stolen vehicles were taken off the dealership lots, the defendants avoided law enforcement detection by removing the GPS navigation and tracking systems from the stolen vehicles, attaching fictitious dealer tags or stolen license plates on the vehicles, and replacing the vehicles’ authentic vehicle identification numbers, among other things.
