KENOSHA COUNTY, Wis. (WFRV) – A three-year-long investigation has resulted in 23 members of a sophisticated interstate car theft ring being federally indicted, authorities say.
According to a release from the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office, the investigation was launched in 2022 after a license plate was found on a rural Kenosha County Highway and was later determined to have come from a vehicle stolen out of Milwaukee.
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Over the last three years, officials say, numerous search warrants were carried out in La Crosse, Madison, Sun Prairie, Milwaukee, Racine, and Chicago.
These search warrants led to the identification of a number of key figures in the multi-million-dollar criminal enterprise. Diaunte Shields, Casha Griffin, Brianna Shields, Lashawn Davis Jr., and Meliek McClarn were identified by detectives as part of the twenty-three suspects total in this Federal Indictment.
The interstate car theft ring targeted high-end vehicles from residences and Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, with scanning devices and cloning tools being used to steal the vehicles.
The VINs, plates, and radios were swapped out of the vehicles before they were sold for cash throughout the United States, from Las Vegas to Florida and Georgia.
Money from the sales of the stolen vehicles was then said to be funneled into phony LLCs before being used to buy real estate that was also then sold to launder the money.
In addition to four stolen cars, the aforementioned carried out search warrants also resulted in the findings of a stolen firearm from Detroit, credit card cloning devices, hundreds of counterfeit vehicle titles, counterfeit VIN plates, stolen high-end clothing, stolen jewelry, and cash.
Officials also say a drug nexus was identified in Whitestown, Indiana, which involved the delivery of large amounts of heroin and methamphetamine.
The three-year-long investigation was conducted with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, the Sun Prairie Police Department (WI), and the Wheaton Police Department (IL).
The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office is honored to have played a crucial role with all of our involved law enforcement partners. The fact that a recovered license plate in Kenosha County ultimately led to the federal indictments of 23 individuals is truly impressive. I am proud of the fact that KDOG detectives identified key members, executed search warrants, and gathered crucial evidence of this crime ring.
Kenosha County Sheriff David Zoerner
No other information is available at this time.
