There has been a noticeable increase in the number of car thefts of certain types of cars across America, and the challenging videos circulating on social media may be behind the whole phenomenon.

The Wall Street Journal article From Atlanta to Seattle, police warn that car thieves have stolen certain types of vehicles for fun. Due to the Internet challenge, which is about showing users how easy it is to hack certain models of Kia between 2011 and 2021 and Hyundai between 2016 and 2021, a lot of these cars have been stolen in the country recently. Behind the viral videos, for example, is a user named Kia Boys, who explained how affected models were stolen and encouraged others to do the same.

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In Chicago, the number of car thefts has increased dramatically: in August of this year, thieves seized 601 Kias and Hyundais, compared to just 58 thefts the year before.

In St. Louis, 3,970 cars were stolen by the end of August, while in 2021 they did not steal that many cars over the course of the year (at that time, this number was 3,784). 48 percent of cars broken into were Kia or Hyundai, while last year that percentage was just 7 percent.

According to the police, the cars in question still had conventional ignition switches, and the cars were easy to steal in part because the keys lack the microchip without which the car cannot be started.

According to a county mayor, car thefts have actually increased in the past two months.



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