Thieves steal dozens of luxury vehicles from Queens dealership
NEW YORK - Thieves stole 26 vehicles from a car dealership in Queens sometime Sunday night into Monday morning, police said.
The thieves cut power to Carsiri car dealership on Queens Boulevard and Kneeland Street in Elmhurst so there would be no surveillance video, the NYPD said. Then they broke the locks on the security gate, broke into the office, and took the keys.
Over multiple return trips, they drove away with 26 vehicles worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, New York City police said.
This was the second big car heist within a month.
Back on Oct. 13, a dealership on Liberty Avenue in Jamaica experienced a similar loss, the NYPD said. The same tactics were used to gain entry to the lot and the vehicles. The thieves made off with 19 luxury cars worth over $800,000. Police have since recovered two of the vehicles — a BMW and a Mercedes.
Detectives are looking into whether the same crew carried out both heists.
Car thefts overall are up 34.2% over last year, the NYPD said.