A trio of alleged car thieves very nearly walked away with $95,000 recently. However, their scheme was thwarted by an observant car dealer at the Stephen Wade Auto Center in St. George, Utah.
That employee’s quick thinking enabled police to set up a sting, arrest three men and save the dealership from losing thousands paying for a stolen vehicle. And, it was all thanks to his careful checking of the vehicle identification number (VIN).
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Here’s how the scam was foiled, along with how car owners can protect their own VINs — or make sure they don’t end up with a stolen car if they are buying a vehicle.
Phony VIN leads to a discovery of criminal behavior
The sequence of events that resulted in the arrest began when a man identifying himself as Marciano Madrano Penaloza went into the Stephen Wade dealership to sell a 2023 Chevrolet pickup truck, reported St. George News.
The dealership and Penaloza agreed on a price and Penaloza left with plans to return the next day to pick up a check for $51,000.
While the sale was pending, though, a dealership employee checked the VIN and found that it came back as “invalid.” This discovery launched an investigation of the vehicle, with employees checking the side door sticker, engine compartment and near the windshield where the VIN was found.
They found something surprising then — the VIN had been altered, though the change was hard to detect. When the real VIN was located, it revealed that the truck had been stolen. The dealership called law enforcement, who sprang into action to set up a sting after discovering Penaloza was coming back the next day to pick up the check.
When Penaloza returned with two others, all three men were arrested. According to St. George News, a search of their car by detectives uncovered a $44,000 check from a different dealer to whom Penaloza sold another truck. Police said that the VIN on that vehicle had also been altered and, when the real one was checked, that truck had also been reported stolen.
If the altered VIN hadn’t been found, the scammers would have walked away with a reported $95,000.
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How to keep your car’s VIN safe — or use it to make sure your car purchase is legit
A VIN is a unique identifying number found within every vehicle. They essentially serve as the car’s fingerprint, with each 17-digit number permanently linked to a specific vehicle.
VINs are recorded in databases, including the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS), which stores a consolidated list of car title information compiled from Department of Motor Vehicles (DMVs) in participating states. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) also maintains a VIN database, which is the one the dealer checked in this particular case.
If a car is stolen, in an accident or sold, all these details become part of the records attached to the VIN — sort of like how people’s borrowing behavior is added to their credit record.
That’s why thieves alter the VIN — to try to avoid a buyer finding the true history of a car. In this case, once the dealership found the unaltered vehicle ID number, they were able to use it to find out the truth about the truck and stop the scam in its tracks.
Protecting owners
If you’re a car owner, you need to protect your VIN. Otherwise, someone could steal it and use it in a scam like this one, attaching your legit VIN to a stolen car so when dealers search their database, everything comes up clear.
Cybercriminals can also sometimes hack a vehicle from thousands of miles away by using the VIN and the owner’s email to access a vehicle’s app and take over. Obviously, you don’t want that to happen.
The good news, you can help keep your car’s ID safe by covering the VIN with tape so people can’t look in the window of the car and see the number. Car owners should also make sure to avoid providing their VIN to anyone they don’t know and trust, so it won’t fall into the wrong hands.
Protecting buyers
As for car buyers, the key is to find a vehicle without a history of problems, like being reported stolen. Buyers should look carefully at the VIN in any vehicle they’re considering to make sure it’s not altered. You can check if fonts match up or if there are any scratches or markings near where the VIN is posted that could suggest tampering.
Once you have the (hopefully correct) VIN, you can run it through many online services that search VIN databases, including CARFAX, which will perform a VIN decoder to show buyers the car’s history.
Of course, even the dealer was nearly tricked here, so you’ll need to be careful when checking a vehicle’s VIN to make sure you aren’t duped.
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
