Colorado Rockies third baseman Kris Bryant has been reunited with his 2023 Lamborghini Huracan after it was rerouted by thieves on its way to Bryant’s offseason Las Vegas home.
Detective Justin Smith of the Cherry Hills Village Police Department said hackers infiltrated the email system of a carrier company used by a broker that Bryant contacted about transporting the vehicle.
Cherry Hills Village police used license-plate-detecting cameras to track the truck that took the car from Colorado to Nevada, where Las Vegas police arrested a man suspected of being behind in a string of thefts.
“Me, and our chief, and our command staff all take auto theft very seriously, and any time we can get back somebody’s vehicle that’s been stolen, that’s a win for us,” Smith said. “We would treat it no differently if it was someone’s F-150 versus a Lamborghini.”
New models of the 2023 Lamborghini Huracan can retail for more than $340,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. Bryant’s car was also customized in a way that made it easy to identify when it was spotted by a Las Vegas police officer.
The car was picked up from Bryant’s home in Cherry Hills Village on Sept. 29. When it failed to arrive at the athlete’s Vegas home, on Oct. 2, Bryant and his broker both contacted police.
Members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s auto theft team, U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents and Cherry Hills Village police worked together to find the Lamborghini. The car was spotted Oct. 7, and the driver told police that he owned a maintenance shop and was asked by a Texas man to fix the car’s computer system.
The man was later identified as Dat Viet Tieu and was confronted by police when he arrived at Harry Reid International Airport to pick up the Lamborghini. When police asked how Tieu planned to travel from the airport to the maintenance shop, Tieu directed police to a stolen Jeep that Smith said contained tools used to perpetrate motor vehicle thefts.
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Smith said additional suspects have since been arrested in connection with the hacking and related thefts, whose victims also included a player for the Texas Rangers baseball team.
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