Illinois police urge consumers to check VINs amid rise in stolen cars sold online

CHICAGO - More than a million cars a year continue to be stolen in the U.S. according to the latest statistics from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

But what happens to those cars after a crime is committed, or the joy ride is over? Some consumers might end up buying one of those stolen cars without even knowing it.

Joliet police Det. Jeffrey German is leading the search to find Jocelyn Buster, a 27-year-old Joliet woman, for whom he said he obtained an arrest warrant through the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.

"She is buying vehicles from dealerships using a stolen identity, obtaining a car loan using that stolen identity," German said. "Eventually, she’ll sell that car to an unsuspecting person usually through social media for cash."

In the end, that deal adds up to no cash and no car for the consumer.

"Eventually, that person that buys the vehicle will lose the vehicle because the bank will have found out the car was purchased fraudulently, and the title was not valid."

Lt. Adam Broshous, with the Illinois Secretary of State Police, also sees similar situations on social media involving stolen cars for sale and has to break the bad news to consumers who may not see it coming.

"We’ll tell ‘em we see an error on your application for title and we need to take a look at the vehicle itself to make sure that it is what it represents itself to be," Broshous said. "Then, we’ll sit down and explain this is what happened."

Broshous is also the director of the Illinois Statewide Auto Theft Task Force.

"That’s a lot of what the Illinois Statewide Auto Theft Task Force does is we’ll receive those documents," he said. "We’ll go out and actively find out those vehicles that most often have been sold to an unsuspecting consumer."

Checking the VIN, or vehicle identification number, is one of the main pieces of information Broshous and his team look at when tracking stolen cars.

Fox 32 Chicago caught up with Broshous at a Calumet City tow yard where he showed a few cars the task force recovered earlier this year. One was a 2023 Dodge Durango that was stolen south of the Chicago area.

"The VIN was changed to lend legitimacy to the vehicle and then sold to the unsuspecting public," Broshous said.

He added that another car "was recovered at a residence in the south suburbs after the Secretary of State’s Office received a fraudulent title that matched the replacement VIN on it."

Investigators said the consumer told them he found the car on Facebook Marketplace and paid cash for it.

He also showed Fox 32 a 2018 Chevy Tahoe.

"This particular vehicle was stolen from a rental car company using fraudulent identity documents to initially rent this vehicle," Broshous said. "Once rented, VIN number removed and replaced with another VIN and sold to general public."

Before it was brought to the tow yard, Broshous said investigators recovered the SUV in Markham from a person who also bought it online.

The SUV still has the fake VIN on it.

"I can look at it and see the font on it is not correct for a Chevy product made in 2018," he said. "You look at it a little bit closer and there is some creasing and bubbling in the sticker itself. Which, they will not do that. A legitimate one will not bubble and crease in the manner this one has, at least not the ones Chevrolet makes."

Broshous said it’s common practice now to use a VIN from an existing car of the same make, model and year, but isn’t from the U.S.

"They’ll take that off of a car that either exists in another country," he said. "Canada is a popular country right now."

He said offenders like the method, which is often called VIN cloning, since government agencies don’t communicate as easily between different countries. Broshous added there are commercial VIN check databases that will catch the same VIN being used is different countries simultaneously.

"Most people, unless you are in the industry, barely look at VIN numbers on the car, if they even do, when they go to buy it," Broshous said.

Finding those cloned VIN numbers is important to law enforcement. Many times, the stolen cars they are attached to are shipped overseas.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau said that’s because the cars are often used by "organized crime syndicates" for illegal activities like "smuggling, drugs, weapons, or even terrorists across borders."

In the past year, NICB said it has disrupted nearly 2,000 organized crime networks and recovered over 300,000 vehicles. It also recently launched a new partnership with U.S. customers and border patrol to stop stolen cars from being smuggled out of the country.

No matter where consumers are buying a car, the Illinois Statewide Auto Theft Task Force said it’s important to look at the VIN on the dashboard and the federal sticker inside the driver’s door. When consumers check the VIN, they should look for signs of tampering like scratch marks on the label or mounting rivets.

Investigators also say consumers should purchase the car’s history report. It can help determine if the car title the seller has matches what the government has on file.

Anyone with information leading to the arrest of Jocelyn Buster should call Det. German at the Joliet Police Department by calling 815-724-3029. They can also contact Will County Crimestoppers at 800-323-6734 or online at crimestoppersofwillcounty.org if they wish to remain anonymous.