MANSFIELD, Conn. (WTNH) — Thieves have been on a crime spree across Connecticut dealerships, stealing high-end cars in the dead of night.
At Mike and Tony Auto Sales, that included stealing three vehicles — worth more than $300,000 collectively — within a year.
The dealerships all sell exotic cars.
“These individuals aren’t just picking dealerships at random,” Shamar Mahon with Mike and Tony Auto Sales said. “They are coming by earlier in the day during business hours and scouting you out, seeing what potential vehicles are there to be taken, and scouting out your security system, so on and so forth.”
Thieves back up to security gates, tear fences open, and get in and out quickly.
Wednesday night, the suspects hit Champagne Motor Car Company in Mansfield. While police have not released details on the 12 cars that were stolen, the business specializes in expensive rides.
Mike and Tony Auto Sales has been hit twice. The business has responded by adding more cameras, a safe for keys and a new fence.
“We have even gotten to the point where every night we take as many vehicles as we can and put them inside our facility to ensure that at least those vehicles aren’t getting stolen or having their converters being cut,” Mahon said.
Paul Arcari, of Arcari Motor Sales, said that the thieves smashed windows at his business to take a Ram truck. He also thinks they disabled cameras and hacked his wifi.
“They love stealing any cars that have pushbutton starters, because they can make a key in less than five minutes,” he said. “Once they’re in the car, they can have that thing running in less than five minutes.”
The GPS trackers are disengaged the moment the vehicles drive off the lot.
Connecticut State Police detectives are investigating to see if the same suspects are involved in all the thefts. For now, all dealerships can do is secure their showrooms.
“Fighting a ghost, you don’t know who you’re trying to get, where they’re coming from, or when they are going to come,” Mahon said. “You just know that they are there.”
