Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat stolen in Sacramento, tops list of most likely to be stolen
NATOMAS -- Car thieves rolled a rare car right out of a Natomas driveway. It was filmed by multiple neighbors' surveillance cameras as they pushed it down the street into darkness.
The car is a 2021 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye and the model tops the Highway Loss Data Institute's list of the most stolen vehicles for model years 2020-22. The vehicle is 60 times more likely to be stolen than any other car built between 2020 and 2022.
The Natomas Hellcat Redeye's back window was broken by a thief and the person then crawled into the backseat of the car. From there, it appears the person then put the car in neutral and another person helped push the vehicle out of the driveway as the owners slept inside.
From there, the thieves pushed the car around the corner and down the street, and as private investigator and former California Highway Patrol Auto Theft Investigator Marc Hinch explained, they likely did this to avoid starting the car and waking the owners or witnesses in the neighborhood.
"Hellcat theft is almost epidemic at this point in the nation. They've been going on for a couple of years now. I've been working cases a lot in Texas and South, some Southern California up here in Northern California." said Hinch, who runs the website Stolen911.
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Hinch said it's likely a spotter saw the Hellcat Redeye and notified the group of 4-5 people that were filmed pushing the car out of the driveway.
So if you have a Hellcat, a high-end one like that, it is a targeted vehicle and there are crews, and they will watch it for a few days, get your patterns down, know when it's quiet, and they'll make their move to steal." said Hinch.
Hinch said that even if the Hellcat Redeye was parked in a garage, it's likely that thieves would still attempt to steal it due to the value and rarity of the vehicle.
Twenty-five Hellcat cars from model years 2020-22 were reported stolen in insurance claims out of every 1,000 insured vehicle years, according to the same report. Compared to the most stolen car in the 2017-19 model year vehicles, the Infiniti Q6 only had two theft claims for every 1,000 insured vehicle years.
Although multiple security cameras caught the car as thieves rolled it down the street, neighbors who spoke to CBS13 did not hear the car as it moved past their homes.
Police have since said that the car has been found. It's unknown if it suffered any damage between when it was stolen and when it was recovered.