Alleged members of a car-theft ring suspected of nabbing more than 100 vehicles from the D.C. area have been indicted in a multimillion-dollar conspiracy, in which the stolen cars were shipped overseas to be resold, officials said Wednesday.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in D.C., said that the stolen vehicles were valued at up to $4 million and that some were being shipped from ports in New Jersey, Maryland and Georgia to western Africa, where they fetch much higher prices than in the United States because of international trade restrictions.
A 15-count indictment unsealed in federal court this week charges six people with offenses including conspiracy, theft and interstate transportation of stolen vehicles. The alleged car thieves ran a sophisticated operation, Pirro said at a news conference Wednesday, using a device sold by online retailers to override the cars’ remote-control key access, then taking the vehicles to a parking garage in Southeast Washington to swap their license plates and obscure their identification numbers.
The stolen cars were then placed in shipping containers marked as furniture rather than automobiles before crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Pirro said. Some of the vehicles were discovered in Ghana.
“They’re shipped across the ocean to Africa, where demand is sky-high, and profits are enormous,” Pirro said. The indictment covers about 20 vehicle thefts, but Pirro and local officials said the ring is suspected of stealing more than 100 vehicles in D.C. and another 30 in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Car thefts in D.C. doubled in 2023, totaling more than 6,000 that year. The annual totals have since declined. The city’s interim police chief, Jeffrey Carroll, said at the news conference Wednesday that 117 vehicle thefts last year were linked to the indicted crime ring. “To put that number in perspective, that would account for 20 percent of all the motor vehicle thefts in the city so far this year,” Carroll said.
Those indicted include Jacob Hernandez, 29, of Los Angeles; Dustin Wetzel, 23, of Woodbridge, Virginia; James Young, 23, of Hyattsville, Maryland; Khobe David, 24, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland; and Chance Clark, 25, of Waldorf, Maryland. A sixth defendant’s name is redacted in the indictment because he “remains at large and is considered a fugitive,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.
The ring primarily targeted recently manufactured Honda Civics and CRVs, as well as Acura TLXs and RDXs, prosecutors said. Court records listed an attorney only for Young as of Wednesday afternoon. The attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and Carroll encouraged city residents to be vigilant and consider using anti-theft devices such as steering-wheel locks.
“We have been very focused in the District on educating our neighbors, on encouraging anti-theft devices, on making sure that our neighbors and businesses are armed with cameras, and that our police department is working in coordination with the region to make sure we are attacking these crimes,” Bowser said. “Just yesterday, the chief and I walked through a ward for a neighborhood where neighbors are concerned about auto vehicle break-ins and auto theft.”
The vehicles were stolen from D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states since at least February 2025, officials said.
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