[Hummer Geek]

Cops detail elaborate car thefts
September 18, 2006
BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter
Call it the case of the car-cloning con artists.
Police say an audacious trio of scammers may have duped more than 50 people into buying stolen vehicles through a slick scheme that switched vehicle identification numbers.
"Now we have the unpleasant duty of knocking on their door to say: 'It's stolen. It's not yours. We gotta take it,'" said Grand Central Area Chicago Police Lt. Rick Batrich.
The theft ring, which focused mostly on high-end sport-utility vehicles such as Escalades and Tahoes, turned a "tremendous profit," said Cmdr. Dean Andrews.
In just one of the dozens of cases, the trio turned a $1,000 investment into a $20,000 profit. Here's how it worked, Andrews said Sunday:
?The suspects traveled to several states to buy salvage cars that had been in wrecks.
?Brought the vehicles to Illinois and retitled them.
?Scoured city neighborhoods for identical cars and obtained the VINs by scanning them through windshields or other spots.
?Obtained keys from locksmiths for the matching cars targeted to be stolen. (They used registration papers from the lookalike salvage cars and claimed to be owners who had been locked out.)
?Drove off in the stolen cars, removed their VINs and replaced them with VINs from the salvage cars.
?Placed ads in papers -- including the Chicago Sun-Times -- offering the re-tagged vehicles for sale.
Quick turnaround


Charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle were "ringleaders" Jacob Lunga, 30, of the 5300 block of South Massasoit, and his girlfriend Rene Covert, 22, as well as Silviu Angel, 20, of North Carolina. Lunga and Angel, who are from Romania, call each other "cousins" but are not related, police said. Lunga and Covert, who have a child, have previous burglary convictions.
The theft ring's headquarters? A one-car Chicago garage outfitted with an engine hoist, rivets, many VIN tags and a turnaround time that rivaled a NASCAR pit crew, detectives said.
After seeing a suspected stolen vehicle enter the garage, officers executed a search warrant and found that "within 10 minutes, they had over half of the VIN tags removed,'' Andrews said.
"This is not an amateur operation," he said. "They were very good at what they did."
The investigation took two months, and it is believed the plot continued for more than a year, according to police.
The ring stole cars from police districts including Albany Park, Grand Central, Jefferson Park, Rogers Park and Town Hall, and sold them to buyers in the city and suburbs, detectives said.
"We anticipate a lot more charges," Andrews said, adding that the scam was uncovered through the work of Batrich, Sgt. Philip Cappitelli and Detectives Stanley Colon, Steve Murrin and Sean Callaghan. Lunga, Covert and Angel are expected to make a Sept. 22 court appearance.