A gang of luxury-car thieves swiped more than 300 pricey rides worth an eye-popping $15.5 million during a lengthy crime spree that also involved several black-market brokers who bought and sold the hot wheels, authorities announced Wednesday.
The crooks allegedly boosted the high-end vehicles — including Porsches, Audis, BMWs, a Lamgborghini and two Bentleys worth $200,000 each — from parking lots, garages and streets across the New York-metropolitan area.
In one particularly bold heist, nine Mercedes-Benzes — worth about $800,000 — were swiped in February from a storage depot run by Pepe Luxury Cars in New Rochelle.
After breaking the lock to a security fence, the thieves found the keys to the cars and drove them away.
According to a massive, 100-count Queens Criminal Court indictment, the gang would “lay up” the stolen cars in street-side parking spaces to see if cops would recover them.
If the cars weren’t seized, they were then delivered to crooked dealers who used fake ownership documents and stickers to fraudulently register them out of state for resale.
Deputy Inspector Joe Kenny of the NYPD Auto Crimes Unit said 18 people were involved in the scheme, 16 of whom have been busted.
Kenny said the ring was “very innovative,” and that many of the stolen vehicles were rentals that the crooks swiped by first stealing the keys from the rental office, then attaching GPS tracking devices to the cars so they could be ripped off later.
Auto broker Albert Natanov, who allegedly “washed” the titles of the stolen cars, was identified by prosecutors as the kingpin of the operation.
Law-enforcement sources said he legitimately owns a Lamborghini, a Bentley, a Mercedes-Benz — all paid for in cash — as well as a $6,000, gold-plated iPhone.
Both Natanov and Emanuel Mateo, who allegedly headed the Bronx-based “steal crew,” were ordered held without bail, as were most of their alleged accomplices.