The Port of Virginia is second only to New York City in the number of recovered stolen vehicles destined for overseas markets. This year, CBP has nabbed 160 stolen vehicles worth $8 million. A shipment of seven cars worth $1 million was recovered just last week.

CBP’s Outbound Enforcement Team Chief Officer James Askew gave Channel 13 News a tour of the facility where the agency stores these stolen cars. “I would say we’re pushing close to a million dollars worth of cars on the floor today.”

How does the team separate stolen cars from completely legal shipments? Often, a mismatched manifest is a dead giveaway. “If they say it’s a Ford Escape, and we can clearly see it’s a Corvette, we know something’s wrong.”

The crime rings shipping stolen cars out of the Port of Virginia

Officer Ken Guinn with the Outbound Enforcement Team doesn’t believe the vehicles in the shipment were random. “They use small teams in the United States that just focus on, ‘What vehicle do you want? I’ll go get it,’ and it’s instant cash as soon as they give them the vehicle. They get paid anywhere in the low-end, $5,000, to upwards of $20,000 per vehicle.”

So how do these small crime rings locate specific vehicles to fulfill these orders? They may rent them or even buy them using a fake name, hoping to ship them out of the country before anyone wisens up.

Vehicles recovered in this most recent shipment include a Corvette and a Lamborghini. But they also include regular family SUVs—one with a car seat still strapped inside. Askew said, “It’s heartbreaking. This is affecting families.”

You can see the CBP facility, and the latest shipment recovered at the Port of Virginia, in the video embedded below: