[STOLEN] Crew of Thieves Hit a Michigan Dealership and Take Five High-End Vehicles Including a C7 Z06

Dec 10, 2024

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[STOLEN] Crew of Thieves Hit a Michigan Dealership and Take Five High-End Vehicles Including a C7 Z06

The owner of a Michigan dealership had a front-row seat to an experienced car theft ring that hit his lot overnight Sunday, taking five high-dollar vehicles with them, including a C7 Corvette Z06.

The incident started at 1:39 a.m. when Jordan Baker, owner of Comodo Motors in Caledonia Township, was awakened by an automated alert from a motion camera, followed by a call from his security company. He hopped out of bed to check surveillance footage and immediately called 911.

“Luckily, I live close so I could get here or maybe follow, somehow stop what they’re here for,” Baker told a reporter from ABC27 News.

Deciding to watch more safely from a vantage point across the street, Baker was able to capture video of deputies arriving at the lot and then giving chase as the thieves sped off. Earlier, on surveillance video, he had watched the suspects arrive in three vehicles with what turned out to be fake license plates, then break through a gated fence and finally kick open a door at his dealership.

“Imagine being across the street and watching five people break into your house and steal your most prized possessions,” Baker said. “Thank goodness that the men and women in blue were there for us when we needed them. That’s their job. They jumped in and got in harm’s way.”

Five vehicles were targeted by the thieves, including a black 2019 Z06, a 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye with a wide body (one of just 148 built that year in B5 Blue), a black 2021 Dodge Ram 1500 TRX, a black Dodge Challenger, and a white Jeep.

As the thieves headed toward the M-6 freeway, deputies gave pursuit, with speeds reaching more than 100 mph, and they were eventually able to employ stop sticks to partially disable the blue Challenger, forcing it to stop near M-6 and I-96, where a suspect exited the car and climbed into the Jeep.

Authorities believe the suspects are part of an organized theft ring that came to West Michigan looking for specialty cars to steal.

“The way they were driving, the way they were communicating, the way they were able to leapfrog ahead of each other to slow our deputies down by blocking [indicated to us} that they had done this before,” Kent County Undersheriff Bryan Muir said.

Fortunately, with the thefts happening during the middle of the night, traffic was light, allowing deputies to maintain the pursuit longer, though they eventually did lose the white Jeep and black Corvette.

“All the factors have to align for us to continue this pursuit. It happened to be very early in the morning, very little vehicle traffic in the roadways which allowed for our deputies to continue the pursuit for an extended period of time, so we radioed ahead to those law enforcement partners of ours to the east and they were able to assist,” Muir said.

The chase eventually entered Ionia County, where deputies lost sight of the white Jeep and black Corvette. However, a 19-year-old Detroit woman whose name was not release was later arrested and the black Dodge Ram was found in the Lansing area, the sheriff’s office said.

Authorities located the Challenger and also recovered the Corvette in a ditch in Livington County in southeastern Michigan 113 miles away. Photos at the dealership show the damage done to the facility, and Baker believes it will cost thousands of dollars and take weeks to repair the doors and gates. The VINs of the stolen vehicles will also bear the stigma of being “recovered stolen,” he said.