By Steven Symes 
Texas is known for its pickup trucks and for good reason since it’s the top truck market in the United States. It shouldn’t be surprising that thieves in the Lone Star State concentrate on pickups, with a recent bust in the central part of the state helping to expose it.
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The Heart of Texas Auto Theft Task Force recently shared one of its successes out of Waco, netting five stolen pickups in one swoop. Those used vehicles have a combined value of almost $300,000 so it’s a big victory.
It all started with a tip of some people in the Waco area in possession of stolen vehicles. At first the task force, which was working alongside the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office, Waco Police Department, and the National Insurance Crime Bureau, at first recovered a stolen Ford F-250 which went missing out of Waco.
Using information from that bust, investigators were able to track down an address in the city where four additional stolen pickups were located. Those had originally been reported stolen out of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, so someone had stashed them in Waco while swapping the VIN tags, likely to sell the vehicles to unsuspecting shoppers.
The additional four trucks recovered were two GMC Sierra HD AT4s and two Ram TRXs, one with a nice chase rack. All of them would be in high demand on the secondary market and would’ve fetched high prices. But anyone who would’ve scooped one up would’ve been out the cash and the truck.
This bust just shows these theft rings are organized and have reach, transporting vehicles from one area to another in an effort to throw off authorities, then working to hide the true identities of the rides so they can be sold and more people are victimized.
Image via Heart of Texas Auto Theft Task Force/Facebook
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