Two vehicle heists in the span of a week from the same automaker might be a new record, but that’s just what has police in Michigan scrambling. According to the Detroit Free Press reports, there were two major vehicle thefts at two separate Ford plants within a week of each other.
The first theft occurred last week when Ford officials reported several Ford F-150 Raptors missing from its Dearborn truck plant on June 10th. Officials say the value of the trucks stolen was estimated at $1 million. City of Dearborn spokesman Bilal Baydoun said that evidence from the scene showed “fences being rammed.”
So far, 13 Raptors have been recovered. Unfortunately, they aren’t in great shape.
“When [the trucks] were recovered, you could see signs of damage, and some things were stripped away, tires, that kind of thing. They were in various states of disrepair,” Baydoun said.
You know an operation like this had to take some kind of manpower. But so far, just one person has been arrested in connection with the theft. Police are still being tight-lipped about any further details due to this being an open investigation, but Ford did say that it’s working with authorities to find out who did this.
Meanwhile, just over 20 miles and away and one week later, Ford’s troubles weren’t over. Around 3 a.m. local time on June 16, authorities report, thieves drove six Mustangs right past plant security and out the gate.
Authorities contacted the Detroit Regional Communications Center, which put out an APB for the Mustangs to nearby departments. Just over seven miles away in nearby Woodhaven, police spotted a group of Mustangs at a local gas station but didn’t give chase. One idiot driver in a GT500 ran out of gas not long after and was taken into custody. Two more GT500s were recovered a short time later on I-75, both out of gas. Authorities are still searching for the other vehicles.
If this Mustang story sounds familiar, that’s because something similar happened just over six months ago.
It seems like criminals have found a flaw in Ford’s security system, and the automaker really needs to take quick action to prevent these things from happening in the future. And while I don’t really like to dabble in conspiracy theories, but police say 15 Mustangs have been stolen so far this year. The fact that six (presumably) $80,000+ muscle cars just drove past security like it wasn’t a big deal tells me Ford might want to start looking at this problem from the inside.