D.C. Car Theft Ring Allegedly Used $500 Tool To Steal Over 100 Cars

Law enforcement officials announced the indictment of six people in connection with 117 car thefts in Washington, D.C. last year. Findings of a federal and local investigation alleged that this theft ring used a key programmer to steal cars with blank key fobs. Transportation theft is as old as the hills. Before cars, thieves stole horses, and it was probably as easy as untying a rope from a post. Those things didn't even have central locking. But as technology for how humanity moves around has advanced, so have the methods for stealing vehicles.

The thefts primarily occurred in Northwest D.C., but the cars were shipped as far as Africa to be sold on the lucrative black market — a market heavily influenced by high tariffs. According to WTOP, the stolen vehicles were taken to one of two local garages where the license plates were switched out, the vehicle identification number changed, and the GPS devices reset. After that point, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro claimed the cars were loaded onto shipping containers and marked on manifests as "furniture" to avoid customs scrutiny. The former Fox News host added:

"They don't need keys and they don't need hot wiring. No smashed windows, no drama. Just a sleek electronic device called an Autel, A-U-T-E-L. And in under a minute, the car's brain is rewritten. The car is gone in 60 seconds. Welcome to the new world of car theft."

The Autel device that Pirro conveniently spelled out for the assembled press was an Autel MaxiIM KM100X, described by the manufacturer as an "intelligent key programmer & immobilizer." The tool looks like a ruggedized smartphone and is available online for $535. Autel claims that the MaxiIM KM100X can generate a key for over 700 different models in less than a minute, a feature that would be very appealing to a car thief.

Pirro believes that there should be some sort of registry for people who purchase key programmers or a license required to buy one. It seems like a common-sense notion that potentially dangerous tools should be well-regulated by the government. Considering that she threatened in February to arrest anyone who brought a gun into D.C., she's losing a lot of her fans from her time on cable news. On the other side of the border, Canada's government banned the Flipper Zero, a similar key-copying device, in a desperate bid to stop car thefts two years ago.