CHARLOTTE — The U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina said a recently sentenced Charlotte-based car theft ring highlights a growing trend of sophisticated, multi-state operations targeting luxury vehicles for profit.
Two men will spend at least four years in prison for their roles in the crimes, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. attorney in Charlotte told Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz the sophisticated criminals are part of a theft ring that is on the rise.
Andre Lamar Sumner, 43, and Erren Woodson, 40, both of Charlotte, will spend at least four years in prison, convicted of being part of a luxury vehicle theft ring fueled by drug trafficking.
Russ Ferguson, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said his prosecutors started the investigation into the case in 2023.
“It was a series of brazen crimes,” Ferguson said. “They were buying stolen cars. They were renting cars and not returning them, stealing them from people’s driveways, stealing them from car dealerships, doing all of that stuff.”
The ring operated out of Charlotte but hit eight other states from Alabama to New York.
“This was a well-planned out multi-state operation,” Ferguson said. “It was a small business.”
Woodson and Sumner were known as fences, or middlemen, who knowingly bought stolen vehicles.
Channel 9 covered some of these types of thefts, including a break-in at a dealership in 2023 on East Independence Boulevard.
It’s not connected to this specific case, but it painted a picture of how the crimes were carried out.
Woodson and Sumner would then change the VINs on the cars and sell them for big profits.
Search warrants at their Charlotte homes also found guns and cash.
“We’re seeing more and more cases like this,” Ferguson said.
His team has charged 16 people in similar cases, trying to curb these rings, the U.S. attorney said.
We’re working on toppling those businesses so that people can buy cars without feeling threatened by guns and bad deals.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has conducted Operation Scarlet, which cracked this case wide open.
VIDEO: Two arrested for possession of stolen luxury vehicles
©2026 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
