CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx — Due to an increase of Kia car thefts on the area, Iran Martinez is just one of several Coastal Bend residents that has been left without her Kia.
"(The car is) covered in mud, my back window was broken. The whole side of the car was all scraped," Martinez said. "They slammed it into something so the whole front of the car is damaged. All around the car was damaged,"
Martinez parked her car at a neighboring business due to road construction at her residence.
The next day she found her KIA after police told her it had been stolen and severely damaged. As of this writing there is no confirmation on how it was stolen but Martinez thinks it might have been a result of a social media trend.
"I was looking up TikTok videos and apparently it’s a TikTok challenge. These little kids are stealing KIA’s because they’re starting with them USB chargers," Martinez said.
Chris Daugherty, a mechanic we spoke to explains the reason why some models of Kia's are easily stolen.
"They don’t have an immobilizer system. And what an immobilizer system does is kill your fuel or your spark when your key is not recognized," Daugherty said.
Andrew Liaromatis, Program Manager of the Auto Theft Task Force said while there is an uptick in these cases around the area, police have made headway in mitigating the problem.
"A lot of our units are in great cooperation with us," Liaromatis said. "So we’re able to work with our gang, some of active patrol and stuff like that. And actually in the recent last couple of weeks we’ve made a lot of arrests and we’ve seen these thefts kind of start to trend down and that’s always good news."
CCPD also provided a resource to check if your vehicle may a part of Kia and Hyundai's ignition safety recall.
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