On a spectacularly brilliant 1970s autumn day my trusty 1963 23-window VW van valiantly labored up Boston’s storied Beacon Hill. My van’s upgraded 40-hp Beetle engine’s twin exhausts saluted the stately townhomes of Boston’s Louisburg Square home to such luminaries as Edward Kennedy, John Kerry and Carly Simon.

Three nurses I knew had accepted positions at Mass General Hospital. I had volunteered to help them move. Now, conveniently parked by their building’s entrance I began shuttling their belongings from my open van into their apartment. Exiting the building for my next load, I did not remember having moved my van. I did remember the man on a ladder painting the trim on an adjoining building. Unfortunately in focusing on his painting, he had not seen the person(s) who had stolen my van. I was devastated.

In the ensuing 50 years automobile crime has done nothing but gain sophistication and grow. Personally experienced thefts still hurt just as much. Luckily law enforcement sophistication has grown as well. Chris Connolly a recently retired 30-year veteran of the New York City Police Department served as the senior member of the NYC Auto Crimes unit. This is one of his stories.

New York City Automotive Crimes and the Man Who Solved Many of Them   Part 1

Chris Connolly with his Hurst Olds

Twenty four-year old Chris Connolly joined the New York City Police force in 1993. As a lifelong car enthusiast it did not take him long to find a natural fit in the NYC Auto Crimes division. Stationed in the Bronx, Chris, over decades, built a reputation as the go-to guy for auto crime investigation and expert courtroom testimony. In 2023 Chris retired with a wealth of experience and a treasure trove of stories. We begin with the “cloning” scam.

Chris prefaces his story saying, “I tell people all the time don’t put your license plate or VIN online. When at a “Cars and Coffee” or such, if the VIN shows through the windshield, black out the last six digits of your VIN.”

With cloning, somebody locates a car they want to steal, in this case a new Mercedes-Benz CL55 sitting on a dealership lot. The thief then assumes the role of the car’s owner, by counterfeiting a fake title, and with faked documents goes to another M-B dealership and orders a duplicate key. Then using a VIN number taken from an identical model (CL55) attaches a fake VIN plate to the stolen CL55. Thus if stopped by police for any reason, the car comes up as clean. Chris at the top of his game encountered, doggedly pursued and ultimately apprehended the mastermind of an very crafty cloning scam.

Being a savvy detective Chris would frequent areas that might be prone to problems. Basically Chris scouted for trouble in high probability locations. The Bronx offered a rich supply. In one particular case Chris says, “I went to an area in the Bronx that had a lot of repair shops, one of which did a lot of work on Mercedes and BMWs. Late-model stuff. It served a lot of people who would buy salvage title Benzes or BMWs, cars out of warranty with owners who couldn’t afford going to a dealer.”

Mercedes-Benz CL55

Chris says, “So my partner and I cruised down the street and out front of this shop sat a Mercedes CL55 AMG. A gorgeous car. This happened around 2004. I recall the car was a 2003.” With a trained eye Chris noticed it had an odd out of state license plate. He says, “It’s one of the states with a lax DMV.” It struck him as curious. Such a relatively new car should have been under warranty and being serviced by a dealer. But Chris checked the VIN number and it did not send up any red flags. He simply left. But he did not forget. That night he went to a local Mercedes dealer.

Entering the service department Chris introduced himself as being from the NYC Auto Crimes Division. Chris says, I asked the guy at the desk to check the VIN number to see if it was a real car. The service writer checked the VIN and tells Chris, “Yeah, it’s a CL55.” Okay, check. He goes on to identify the car’s exterior color, silver. It matched. Check. Next came the interior color, Parchment. Red flag! Chris’s suspect car had a dark blue interior. Chris says, “It struck me as seriously odd.’ It then got much odder. The service guy tells Chris that the car has just been in for service. Chris says, “I asked where and the guy tells me, California.” Employing the benefit of the doubt, Chris assembled a scenario where an owner had replaced the interior of a year-old Mercedes and drove it across the country where he stopped off at an independent service point in the Bronx. Not likely. Then the service writer totally dispelled this benefit of the doubt by identifying the Californian who owned the Benz. The service writer pipes up and says, “The owner’s an anesthesiologist.” Chris placed a call to the doctor.

The doctor says, “I drove the car to work today. It’s in the parking lot outside my window. I can see it.” Considering the mismatched interior and the credibility of the California owner, Red flags started flapping all around the car parked in the Bronx. Chris returned with his partner to “sit” on the suspected bogus Benz. It had not moved. They would patiently wait for the owner, who hence forth will be called “scam man,” to appear. Their patience paid off. Scam man shows up.

Chris says, “This guy comes in. He sees me and my partner in the car and definitely ID’s us as the police. Then he kind of flashes a little smirk in our direction.” The smirk did not go over well with Chris’s partner.” Chris says, “It really pissed off my partner.” Chris as the experienced voice of reason calmed his partner saying, “Don’t worry, we’re good.” Having paid the bill, scam man departed the shop and hopped in the Mercedes. With that Chris and his partner introduced themselves. Chris observes that whenever police approach a person who knows they have a car with a “problem” the person immediately explains that the car belongs to someone else. When Chris questions scam man as to who owns the car scam man says, “This is my friend’s girl’s car.” Chris explains that there may be an issue with the out-of-state license plates. Chris directs scam man back to the precinct. Chris says he never wants to make an accusation of possible illegality until he can actually confirm it.

Back at the station Chris knows where to locate the CL55’s engine number. The number comes back as belonging to another Mercedes CL55 reported stolen out of New Jersey. Chris calls the police in New Jersey. At last the whole story unravels. Apparently scam man saw this CL55 sitting in a New Jersey Mercedes dealership lot and wrote down the VIN number and created a fake title. Scam man then went to another Mercedes dealer with a fake driver’s license bearing his photograph and ordered a key for the new CL55 sitting back in the other dealership’s lot. Is this beginning to sound like “Gone in 60 Seconds” or what? When the duplicate key came in, scam man waited for the Mercedes dealership with the targeted new CL55 to close. He then walked up with the key and drove the new CL55 off the dealer’s lot.

Interestingly, somehow the New Jersey police figured this out when they saw a replacement key was ordered by a guy with a fake license. Arrested and convicted, scam man served time. But the stolen CL55 could not be located. Chris says, “I just happened to lock him up in the Bronx with the actual car.

Chris notes that an important aspect of cloning requires changing the ID plate located by the base of the driver’s side windshield. In this case scam man changed the VIN plate on the stolen car to the VIN number of the anesthesiologist’s car that he had somehow acquired. Possibly online.

Chris says, “Cloners try to get the same font. They try to get the same, glossy Black or matte black finish. Cloners work hard to get it right or someone who knows what they are looking at will spot it right away.”

Interestingly, Chris says, “This guy had all kinds of summons. He’d been stopped multiple times in the car, but if police officers lack an auto crimes background or don’t really know the stolen car game they don’t catch it. This guy had that car for a year and a half. He’d even been locked up but he’s still driving it around.” He would not be driving it anymore.

In describing how he approaches auto crimes such as cloning, Chris says, “I look at a suspect car as a whole.” In this case Chris could tell the car had never been repainted. Chris says, “It clearly did not fit the mold of a salvage that somebody had bought, fixed cheaply and maybe had codes popping up that could be cleared through this independent in the Bronx.”

Chris says, “This Mercedes, to my eye, showed as a perfect one-year-old CL55 that shouldn’t be in a shop in the Bronx.” Clearly this situation glaringly screamed “What’s wrong with this picture?” To Chris’s trained eye the answer came back loud and clear, plenty.

From time to time we will visit with Chris to explore other auto crime topics like how best to protect your car, classic car scams, chop shops, wheels and tires and much more.