HONOLULU (KHON2) — The Honolulu Police Department crime dashboard shows thousands of vehicles were stolen on Oahu in 2023.
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KHON2 spoke to a rental car company that had five vehicles stolen in less than two weeks.
The owner of Mahalo Car Share in Laie said their first car was stolen of their lot on Saturday, Oct. 28. She filed a police report, but two more cars went missing on Tuesday, Oct. 31.
“Fast forward, then November 4th, we got our fourth car stolen by this time, so this is going to be a third time they come back,” Zully Davila said.
They had a system where customers would rent out cars and lock the keys in a lock box on the vehicle when it was returned. Davila said the thieves cracked open the lock box of a fifth car on their third visit — the fifth car disappeared on Friday, Nov. 10.
“So, five cars down,” Davila said, “we were notified about one car coming back, it was burned down and that was the first car that was stolen.”
HPD said lock boxes often provide a false sense of security.
“An experienced thief can have one of those open and have your keys in probably 5 to 10 seconds,” HPD Lt. Christian Trent said.
HPD’s crime dashboard shows that there have been 2,881 motor vehicle thefts — including motorcycles, motor-scooters and mopeds — in 2023, which comes out to 8.98 vehicles stolen per day.
“That’s insane,” Davila said. “You know, and it makes you question like, okay, is this a group of people? Is this now like someone’s business?”
