News
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How a Tampa Dealer Turned Phantom Car Loans Into a $460K Rolls-Royce Smuggling Attempt
The vehicles didn’t exist. The loans did. And when a Tampa car dealer needed to squeeze even more money out of his scheme, he tried shipping a stolen $460,000 Rolls-Royce out of the country in a cargo container. Loans for Cars That Were Never Sold Mohamad Jihad Fakih, 27, used his access to dealership systems…
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Nissan’s $1.5 Million Data Breach Settlement: What Affected Employees Can Actually Claim
If you got a breach notice from Nissan North America about a 2023 cybersecurity incident, there’s now real money on the table — but how much depends entirely on which claim option you choose and whether you can document your losses. What Actually Happened in 2023 The breach began around November 7, 2023, and according…
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Why an FBI Terrorism Task Force Ended Up Investigating a Tampa Car Loan Scam
A car fraud case that ends with a federal prison sentence isn’t unusual. One that gets built by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is. Here’s how a Tampa dealer’s loan scheme and an attempted Rolls-Royce smuggling operation ended up on that unit’s desk — and how the whole case wrapped up in court. The…
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The Camera He Smashed Still Caught Him: Inside Waterford’s License Plate Reader Vandalism Case
There’s a particular irony in getting caught by the exact device you just destroyed. That’s allegedly what happened to a 24-year-old Clarkston man now facing three felony counts after Waterford Township police say one of the license plate readers he smashed still managed to photograph his vehicle before it went dark. Cameras Going Dark Across…
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Report: Dodge Is Bringing the Hellcat V8 Back to the Charger — But Only in One Trim
Dodge killed the V8 Charger in December 2023 with a run of “Last Call” editions, and the backlash from loyal buyers apparently hasn’t faded. According to industry insiders, the company has now approved plans to bring the supercharged Hellcat back — just not to the whole lineup. What’s Reportedly Been Approved Sources connected to automotive…
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Stolen DC Jeeps Recovered at Port of Baltimore Just Before Shipping to West Africa — But the Owner Doesn’t Get His Back
Two Jeep Wranglers stolen off a Southeast Washington, D.C. street turned up weeks later exactly where investigators feared they would: sealed inside a shipping container at the Port of Baltimore, staged to leave the country for West Africa. Customs agents caught them just in time — but for one owner, “recovered” doesn’t mean he gets…
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How a Missing Child Report Led Detectives to an Impound Lot — And a Toddler Still Alive Inside
For nearly two days, a 1-year-old boy sat inside a towed vehicle at a Detroit-area impound lot, undetected by anyone — until a detective connected a missing-child report to a single line in the tow paperwork and reached the car in time. A Routine Tow That Wasn’t Routine at All The chain of events began…
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Why Smashing a Police Camera in Michigan Can Cost You Three Felonies, Not One
Three felony counts for damaging equipment that doesn’t even interact with drivers directly — that’s the legal reality now facing a Clarkston man accused of destroying license plate readers in Waterford Township, and it comes down to how Michigan law treats damage to government law enforcement infrastructure. One Charge Per Camera Spencer Anderson, 24, is…
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Detroit’s Truck Profits Are on the Line If the Iran Conflict Keeps Oil Prices Elevated
A three-to-four month window is what analysts say separates a temporary gas price spike from something that actually reshapes what Americans buy at the dealership — and that clock is now running on the widening conflict involving Iran. Why the Strait of Hormuz Matters to Your Fuel Bill The Persian Gulf handles roughly one-fifth of…
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EV Registrations Just Broke a Decade-Long Winning Streak — Here’s What Actually Happened
A 0.4 percent dip doesn’t sound like much. But it’s enough to end roughly a decade of uninterrupted growth in U.S. EV registrations, and the timing lines up almost exactly with the repeal of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit. The Headline Number vs. What Happened in December According to registration data compiled by S&P…
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GM Is Retiring Its Old Certified Pre-Owned Program — And Dealers Don’t Get a Choice
Starting in June, a Chevrolet, Buick, or GMC dealer who wants to sell a used vehicle with a factory-backed warranty won’t have a choice about how to do it. GM is dissolving its traditional certified pre-owned program and routing that business through a single platform: CarBravo. What’s Actually Changing GM confirmed it’s shutting down the…
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The Glovebox Discovery That Blew Open a $282,000 Porsche GT3 Lawsuit
Dealership staff told Abdul Azizi the window sticker was simply missing. It wasn’t — it was sitting in the glovebox the whole time, and according to his lawsuit against Porsche Cars North America, it carried a label that should have stopped the sale before it ever happened: “not for sale.” A “New” GT3 With 34…
