FAIRFAX, Va. — Employees of a used car dealership in Alexandria are taking extra steps to avoid more trouble after a recent break-in.
On the first week of its grand opening last month, CarPlug of Alexandria captured two people breaking into the business and sift through the box of car keys. The crooks could be seen driving up in a van, which owners claimed was stolen from a nearby bakery, and busting the front door around 2 a.m. that morning.
“Luckily, they didn’t take our keys, but I think they were looking for that one vehicle,” CarPlug Owner Jacob Wassin told WUSA9. “On the day I posted about the vehicle, some people tried to rob the dealership.”
Wassin believed they were wanting the keys for the popular Dodge Charger Hellcat, but on that same night, employees took certain keys home. As an extra precaution, the business takes all of the vehicle keys home and hides popular, luxury vehicles from the public’s view.
He’s also more careful about which cars they post on social media.
“It scares us because we’re dealing with million of dollars,” Wassin said. “Nowadays, people are using Google to look up how to steal cars from dealerships.”
These types of crimes are no stranger to jurisdictions including Fairfax County, where police said the role of social media has been a problem.
“With technology and social media, there's one trend that hit social media, a TikTok challenge, where people were posting online how to steal specific cars and that took off like wildfire,” Sgt. Ryan Quarto of FCPD said.
In Fairfax County, the number of stolen vehicles jumped from 931 in 2021 to 1,213 in 2023. Quarto said there are still many cases involving vehicles being left unlocked. In a lot of cases, the thieves aren’t from the area and officers are recovering more cars stolen from outside the jurisdiction in Fairfax County.
Quarto, a detective with FCPD’s Auto Crimes Enforcement (ACE) Unit, said since the program began in April 2022, the unit found 245 stolen cars, arrested nearly 700 people, recovered 33 firearms and 35 stolen license plates.
ACE continues to enhance its proactive patrolling, continuing to educate the public on safe practices, and harnessing the use of specific technology including license plate readers.
“It kind of cuts down on the need to have to be everywhere at the same time,” Quarto added. “You can just run license plates and see what's going on.”