Howard County, Maryland, police announced on Nov. 6 that detectives had arrested 13 people, 11 of them juveniles, in a summer-long push against the county’s most prolific vehicle theft suspects, and tied them to at least 35 thefts. The same day, the department advertised a Saturday giveaway of steering wheel locks at its Southern District Station in Laurel, free to Hyundai and Kia owners. The two crews described in the department’s release mostly took Hondas, Acuras, Chevrolets and Dodges. The Howard County vehicle thefts the arrests addressed and the cars the giveaway covers overlap less than the announcement suggests.
Two crews, seven key reprogramming devices
According to the release, the suspects often worked in small groups. One group mostly targeted Hondas and Acuras along Washington Boulevard, U.S. Route 1. Another mostly targeted higher-end Chevrolet and Dodge models. Police said they recovered seven key reprogramming devices, which the release says are used to generate keys and clone transponders so a vehicle can be stolen within minutes, along with three handguns. Stolen vehicles were used to commit other crimes, sold, stripped for parts or taken joyriding, the department said.
The 13 include two 18-year-olds, one from Baltimore and one from Elkridge, and 11 juveniles aged 15 to 17 from Columbia, Elkridge, Laurel and other communities. The release says they face various vehicle theft charges but does not list specific counts, court dates or any response from the suspects or their attorneys. Detectives are still reviewing evidence to link them to more Howard County cases and believe they were involved in crimes in neighboring jurisdictions. All of it is an accusation until a court says otherwise, and the juveniles are not named here.
What a 41 percent drop does and doesn’t show
From May 1 to July 31, Howard County police counted 130 reported thefts of Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Acura, Chevrolet and Dodge vehicles. From Aug. 1 to Oct. 31, they counted 77. That is 53 fewer, the 41 percent decline in the department’s headline, and since both windows run 92 days it works out, by The Auto Wire’s math, to about 1.4 thefts a day falling to about 0.8.
Detectives believe the suspects were responsible for at least 35 thefts from spring into July, when most were arrested. That window starts before May 1, so the 35 cannot be subtracted cleanly from the 130. The release also does not say how much of the 53-theft drop traces to the 13 arrests, and it gives no counts for makes outside the six it lists.
The diagnosis is not new in Howard County. The department’s October 2022 prevention page said police believed most Hyundai and Kia thefts were committed by a small number of people, mostly juveniles and young adults, and offered free steering wheel locks to residents then too. Four years later the makes on the list have grown from two to six, and the explanation is the same.
Why the free locks go to Hyundai and Kia owners
The Hyundai and Kia wave has a known cause and a known fix. The Highway Loss Data Institute, the insurance industry’s research arm, reported in a May 2025 bulletin that Hyundai and Kia vehicles that received the anti-theft software upgrade, which began in February 2023, had theft claims 46 percent lower than eligible vehicles that had not. We have covered how that gap still drives theft numbers and what Hyundai is adding next.
The Hondas, Acuras, Chevrolets and Dodges in this case are a different problem. The crews had key reprogramming devices, and the release does not mention a software remedy for those models. It does say police consider the steering wheel lock the most effective theft deterrent, and the engineering explains why: a cloned key can start the engine, but it cannot turn a wheel with a steel bar across it. Muscle-car owners have watched the same electronic bypass play out, as in the cloned-key rings police warned about last year.
The release says VIN etching, which engraves the vehicle identification number on the major glass, is open to everyone, and it lists the free locks for Hyundai and Kia owners while supplies last. It does not say what an owner of a Honda, Acura, Chevrolet or Dodge can get. The Saturday event, Nov. 7 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., has already happened.
What Maryland law says about the seven devices
Maryland’s code grabbing device statute, Criminal Law section 7-301, defines the device as one that can record the coded signal from an electronic security system and play it back to disarm it. Motor vehicle security alarms are on the statute’s list. Making, selling, using or possessing one is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year, a $1,000 fine or both, but only with the intent that it be used in a crime. That intent element matters because locksmiths and dealers program keys with similar equipment, and the statute’s record-and-playback wording is not obviously a description of a tool that generates keys. The release does not say which statutes police used for the seven devices.
The vehicle itself carries heavier exposure. Under section 7-105, taking a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent is a felony with a maximum of five years and a $5,000 fine, and an offender must return the vehicle or pay the owner its full value. How that applies to the juveniles depends on a juvenile court process the release does not describe.
What happens next
Detectives are still matching evidence to open cases in Howard County and elsewhere, so the count of 35 can rise, and the release gives no court dates. Owners with questions about locks or VIN etching can call the department’s auto theft unit at 410-313-1035.
Police are handing out locks for the cars with the famous flaw while the crews worked on Hondas. If you drove a Honda in Howard County, would you feel left out of that giveaway?