Victim speaks following indictment of 13 people in auto crime ring targeting Denver metro area
It was back in November 2022, when Colorado Springs resident Michael Anthos' 2019 Ford Raptor was stolen from the Pikes Peak parking lot at Denver International Airport.
"I heard car theft was bad in Colorado and I just moved here a little over a year ago," he said. "So, to be new and have my car stolen was kind of not so great."
Anthos dropped off his car at the airport to rent it to a traveler through Turo while he attended a conference in Denver. Yet, the person renting the car never got a chance to see it.
"I'm at the conference, I get an alert on my iPhone saying that 'a master reset was done to your Ford vehicle. You no longer have access through the Ford connect app,'" said Anthos. "I've never seen that before; I knew something probably wasn't right."
Thirteen people have now been indicted for allegedly stealing Anthos's and dozens of other cars across the Denver metro area, many of which were stolen at DIA.
"Apparently my truck was used on the way to their stash house to commit several crimes on the way there," said Anthos.
Anthos retrieved his truck about two days later at the Aurora police impound lot after police were able to track his stolen truck to the stash house.
"When they went in to arrest the suspect, from what I was told by the detective, they were inside the garage, with my truck with the doors closed," said Anthos. "They drove through the garage door that was closed, hit a police car or two and proceeded to take the police on a high-speed chase. My truck was eventually towed because it ran into a Dodge Ram head on and that was the end of my truck."
His stolen vehicle marks one in 121 total counts against the alleged auto crime ring.
"It's great that they're finally able to catch these folks and charge them, so that part's good," said Anthos.
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Yet, Anthos believes this indictment only scratches the surface on a major issue facing Coloradans.
"I think that there's a bigger ring to this and whether they're interconnected or not, who knows, but there's certainly some issues policy-wise or law-wise that we're not going after these folks the way that they probably should be," he said.
While 13 individuals are named in the indictment, only eight are in custody. Two of them are in Mexico and several others are still at large, officials say.
