Colorado Rockies third baseman Kris Bryant has been reunited with his 2023 Lamborghini Huracan after it was diverted by thieves on the way to Bryant’s offseason home in Las Vegas.
Detective Justin Smith of the Cherry Hills Village Police Department told hackers infiltrated the email system from a trucking company used by a broker that Bryant contacted about transporting the vehicle.
Cherry Hills Village police used license plate cameras to track the truck that took the car from Colorado to Nevada, where Las Vegas police arrested a man suspected of being a pillion driver in a string of thefts.
“I, our chief and our command staff all take auto theft very seriously, and any time we can recover someone’s vehicle that has been stolen, it’s a win for us,” Smith said. “We wouldn’t treat it any differently if it was someone’s F-150 versus a Lamborghini.”
New models of the 2023 Lamborghini Huracan can sell for more than $340,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. Bryant’s car was also modified to make it easy to identify when spotted by a Las Vegas police officer.
The car was picked up from Bryant’s home in Cherry Hills Village on September 29. When the car didn’t arrive at the athlete’s Vegas home on October 2, Bryant and his real estate agent both contacted police.
Members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s auto theft team, officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Cherry Hills Village Police Department worked together to find the Lamborghini. The car was spotted on October 7 and the driver told police that he owned a maintenance shop and had been 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 commit car thefts.
Smith said more suspects have since been arrested in connection with the hacking and related thefts, including a player for the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Sign up to receive crime news straight to your inbox every day.