August 28, 2023
Street View/Google Maps
Seven vehicles went missing from the parking garage at 30th Street Station on Sunday night. Thieves accessed a lockbox containing the cars' keys, police say.
Seven vehicles – including multiple Audi SUVs – went missing from the parking garage at 30th Street Station on Sunday night. Authorities believe that thieves may have targeted one of the rental car businesses that stores vehicles in the garage.
Three of the stolen vehicles were recovered in the Summerdale section of the city as of Monday morning, according to 6ABC. Still, police were investigating the incident to determine who stole the vehicles and where the other four cars might be. Fortunately for investigators, rental cars typically have tracking devices installed in them that make it considerably easier to locate them.
There is no word on whether the thieves made any attempt to disable the tracking devices in the vehicles, but there is reason to believe that they had at least some inside knowledge that helped them pull off the heist. The thieves broke into a lockbox in the garage that contains keys to the rental cars housed there, police said.
Audi, the German luxury car manufacturer that made at least three of the vehicles stolen Sunday night, is known to build its cars with security in mind. The automaker has won several industry awards for its anti-theft technology and its vehicles even make it difficult to steal their catalytic converters, a crime that has become increasingly common in Philadelphia and beyond due to the high-value precious metals found in them and the relative ease with which the devices can be removed from cars.
In addition to serving motorists using Amtrak to travel to and from Philadelphia, the multi-level parking garage is used by rental car companies to store and deploy rental vehicles to its customers. Enterprise, Avis, Hertz and Alamo operate rental car services out of the University City train station, which serves as a major transit hub in the Northeast. Police did not disclose which of the rental car companies were targeted in the heist, which is still under investigation.
