Cars stolen from Sacramento-area dealership in ‘coordinated’ break-in, police say
A group of suspects worked together in a planned break-in over the weekend to steal vehicles from a Roseville used auto dealership, damaging other vehicles and plowing through a gate to make their getaway.
The theft occurred about 5 a.m. Saturday at Auto King, according to manager Kevin Sadeghi. The dealership, for the past seven years, has been in the 200 block of Riverside Avenue, just south of Douglas Boulevard.
Sadeghi told The Sacramento Bee that a 2011 Saab, a 2008 Lexus and a 2009 BMW were stolen off the dealership lot in a brazen manner. Sadeghi said the suspects broke into the dealership office, stole keys to the vehicles and used a Range Rover on the lot to break through a gate for their exit.
Roseville Police Department spokesman Rob Baquera on Monday night confirmed the theft. He said investigators did not have any suspect description to release, but they were reviewing security camera video of the break-in.
“This was a coordinated effort to steal the vehicles,” Baquera said. “This wasn’t a random act.”
Sadeghi said the dealership has some minor thefts before, such as a burglar break into one of the cars on the lot to steal a radio inside. But he the dealership has never experienced something like this before.
He said the suspects smashed a glass door to get into the dealership office, where they rifled through cabinets and drawers to find keys to the cars. The suspects then had trouble getting the vehicles they wanted out of the lot.
They got keys to the Range Rover and used it to push a Jeep Wrangler out of the way, Sadeghi said. Then, the suspects used the Range Rover to barrel through a locked gate to clear an exit path, he said. Police recovered the Range Rover nearby, but its front end was severely damaged.
Several other vehicles on the lot also were damaged during the break-in, Sadeghi said.
“It really hit us hard ... because this is income tax (return) time, when we sell a lot of cars,” he said.
