Sharky Laguana owns Bandago Van Rentals, a San Francisco rental company. The theft pipeline described by investigators begins in US rental lots and leads south.
Mexican criminal organisations including the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa cartel steal thousands of luxury automobiles and pickup trucks from US rental agencies each year, transporting them to Mexico for criminal use. California is the main target, although cases have also been recorded in Texas, Arizona, New York, Chicago and Miami.
The method depends on time. Cartel operatives recruit civilians through social networks to rent vehicles from US dealerships in their real names. The renters take vehicles for five days and buy damage coverage that includes theft protection. They then leave the vehicles, keys inside, in the agency parking lot rather than returning them at the dealership window.
After the rental period, an operator collects the vehicle and drives it towards the southern border. California requires rental agencies to wait until the return deadline has passed and the renter has been contacted before activating GPS tracking. Criminal groups use the reporting and tracking delay to get vehicles to Mexico before authorities receive a theft report.
The reported operation also involves rentals using false identities and the complicity of Mexican officials, although the extent of that involvement is unclear. Once vehicles reach Mexico, cartels register them with Mexican licence plates to make identification harder and exchange them for drugs.
Sergeant Juvey Mejia, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Task Force for Regional Auto Theft Prevention, said the groups favour large pickup trucks and all-terrain vehicles. Their preferred models include Ram and Ford Raptor trucks, Chevrolet Suburbans, and BMW and Cadillac Escalade luxury SUVs.
Some of the vehicles are fitted with armour and weapon supports. The adaptations are intended to help them cross difficult terrain and evade Border Patrol during drug trafficking.
Early this year, criminal groups stole 10 new Ram pickup trucks from airports in Oakland, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The trucks reached regions of Jalisco state controlled by the CJNG. Mexican army assistance led to the recovery of one truck, and security forces seized a cache of Browning and Barrett.50-caliber weapons.
Thieves also took six 2026 model Jeep Wranglers from Oakland and Las Vegas, with four recovered so far. Private investigators believe those vehicles were intended for the Sinaloa cartel.
Kevin Carter, owner of Collateral Consultants, a Texas rental-car recovery company, said his firm has received requests to recover vehicles tracked to Sinaloa and Durango state. Last week, those requests included a dozen Ram trucks in Sinaloa and seven in Durango state.
The California Highway Patrol says about 2,000 vehicles stolen from California end up in Mexico each year. It has recovered approximately 850 stolen vehicles in the state each year since 2023. Recovery companies, meanwhile, estimate that thousands of rental cars cross the border annually.
Those figures describe the central enforcement problem: a vehicle can be collected from the same lot where it was rented and moved towards the border during the period when tracking is restricted and a theft report has yet to be made.
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