The curious case of the disappearing Lamborghinis

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Over the years, people have broken into a new business to steal cars, or they’ve rented them out and never come back. But until this day, the people like Zahr had never had a car simply disappear during shipping. He’d expected no trouble this time around, especially since he’d used Central Dispatch—“a legit platform that everyone uses to transport cars,” he said.   “That’s the scary part about it, you know?”  Zahr had unwittingly been caught up in a new and growing type of organized criminal enterprise: vehicle transport fraud and theft. Crooks use email phishing, fraudulent paperwork, and other tactics to impersonate legitimate transport companies and get hired to deliver a luxury vehicle. They divert the shipment away from its intended destination and then use a mix of technology, computer skills, and old-school chop-shop techniques to erase traces of the vehicle’s original ownership and registration.

These vehicles can be retitled and resold in the US or loaded into a shipping container and sent to an overseas buyer. In some cases, the car has been resold or is out of the country by the time the rightful owner even realizes it’s missing.

But the nationwide epidemic of vehicle transport fraud and theft has remained under the radar, even as it’s rocked the industry over the past two years. MIT Technology Review identified more than a dozen cases involving high-end vehicles, obtained court records, and spoke to law enforcement, brokers, drivers, and victims in multiple states to reveal how transport fraud is wreaking havoc across the country.

It’s challenging to quantify the scale of this type of crime, since there isn’t a single entity or association that tracks it. Still, these law enforcement officials and brokers, as well as the country’s biggest online car-transport marketplaces, acknowledge that fraud and theft are on the rise. 

It is estimated that around 8,000 exotic and high-end cars had been stolen since the spring of 2024, resulting in over $1 billion in losses. 

That would require significant changes to the way that load boards operate. Bryant’s Lamborghini, Zahr’s and Payne’s Rolls-Royces, and the orange Lamborghini Urus in Florida were all posted for transport on Central Dispatch. Both brokers and shippers argue that the company hasn’t taken enough responsibility for what they characterize as weak oversight.

Over the last year, Central Dispatch has made changes to further secure its platform. It introduced two-factor authentication for user accounts and started enabling shippers to use its app to track loads in real time, among other measures. It also kicked off an awareness campaign that includes online educational content and media appearances to communicate that the company takes its responsibilities seriously.

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