Graves County Sheriff’s Office warns of stolen vehicles coming from Texas area

GRAVES COUNTY, Ky. (KBSI) – More stolen vehicles from the Houston Texas area have surfaced in Kentucky.

According to Graves County Sheriff’s Office on November 13, 2024, the Graves County Sheriff’s Office through investigation learned that another suspicious transfer had been made after officials were made aware of paperwork that another vehicle bearing the same VIN number was attempted to be registered in another state.

Facebook Marketplace is being used as a way to get hand me downs and vintage pieces that are unique but now also used to trick people into buying stolen vehicles. 

A resident in Graves County Kentucky bought a truck over the summer. He met the dealer in Tennessee to get everything squared away and thought everything was good until he got a call from the Sheriff about six months later. 

For safety reasons the victim agreed to speak to us but did not want us to reveal his identity. 

“I believe we touch base on Facebook first, yes. I met him in Clarksville. I had one of those mobile notary people come meet with us, so I had somebody witness and notarize the titles and such and we swapped over.”

He says everything seemed legit. He even got a photo of the dealer’s ID to find out later on that the ID wasn’t legit either. 

“Yep, took pictures of his identification and my identification with both the titles and the notary stamp on it already.”

The Graves County Resident is left with no transportation and a mess with his bank. He says he still has to make payments on the loan he took out for the stolen vehicle. 

“Honestly, it is pretty hard. I worked a lot to have what little and I had quite a bit of the truck paid off already so probably a little less than half on it. I’m kind of left with more or less nothing and now I’m in a pretty big dispute with my bank, and upon thousand dollars, I already had invested into it or gone as well so it’s pretty not a great feeling by no means.”

Sheriff Jon Hayden in Graves County says so far there has been two vehicles with the wrong vin number in the system and that is how they are finding out for sure that the plates are ran wrong. 

He says they come back as stolen from Texas. 

“The vehicle that they used to clone it tries to get a racer to another state. In other words you’ve got two vehicles with the same Vin number that’s popping in the system and setting up red flags.”

Several vehicles were recovered some in Memphis Tennessee and some in Graves County. 

The vehicles are being stolen out of Houston Texas. Sheriff Hayden says they are full size Chevy pickup trucks and GMC pickup trucks. 

Hayden thinks since there are two different kinds of trucks, they could be separate crimes. He says it appears the criminals have caught on how easy it is to change identification to a vehicle. 

“Of people being victimized by the United States, we’ve had conversations with the authorities in Texas and they tell us that terrible problem. It’s been widely reported that the Houston Texas are alone. They’re taking around 100 around 100 complaints a day for stolen vehicles.”

Sheriff Hayden gives tips on the best way to be able to tell if your vehicle is a non-legit stolen vehicle. 

“Size of the color of the printing doesn’t look quite right or does it look original there? There’s another sign a sure way to identify exactly what vehicle you have is to take it to a mechanic and have them to plug-in their diagnostic equipment into that port that’s under the dash and it will tell you what the Vin number of that vehicle is if that number doesn’t match what’s on your doors on your plate More than likely have stolen vehicle.”

Sheriff’s detectives located the vehicle later in the afternoon and learned that it also had been stolen from the Houston Texas area.

That victim purchased it from an individual in Tennessee.

This incident follows another incident from a couple of months ago, a Mayfield couple located a Chevrolet pickup on Marketplace and made contact with the seller who was in Texas. The seller agreed to meet the couple in Nashville. After meeting the seller, the couple paid the seller cash and brought the vehicle to Graves County to have it transferred and registered, only to find out during the inspection and transfer process that the vehicle was stolen out of Houston Texas.

The Graves County Sheriff’s Office says that in both of these instances, the pickup trucks had been cloned.

The VIN (Vehicle Identification Numbers) had been changed, along with other identifying marks, certification labels, including fictitious titles being manufactured, to match a legitimate vehicle that could be located elsewhere in the United States.

Graves County says it has been reported to them that the Texas city of Houston routinely take 100 theft reports daily for stolen vehicles.

The Graves County Sheriff’s Office also says they believe there is no link to anyone locally being involved in the theft ring. It just indicates how bad this problem is becoming, for a small town to have seen two of these within just a couple of months.

Thousands of cloned vehicles that have been stolen are being re-Vin’ed, which is illegal and is costing victims and insurance companies millions of dollars in losses.

Graves County Sheriff’s Offices urges people to be cautious when purchasing vehicles from strangers.

If you live in Graves County, the Sheriff’s Office says they are happy to assist you with some VIN research and offer additional tips, and things to look for before making the purchase.