- A carjacker beat and ran over a pregnant woman in order to steal a Volkswagen car.
- A 2-year-old female child was in the car. Volkswagen demanded a $150 fee from him to track it down.
- Volkswagen said the incident was a “serious breach of its emergency preparedness process”.
A carjacker stole a Volkswagen car with a 2-year-old in it and was told it would cost $150 to search for it with Volkswagen Carnet, a system that allows police to remotely control the car.
Chris Covelli, deputy superintendent of the Lake County, Illinois Sheriff’s Office, was delayed in tracking down the stolen vehicle because of demands for payment. called “Sixteen Minutes of Hell” according to the Chicago Tribune.
The stolen vehicle’s tracking system has been deactivated and Volkswagen Carnet has refused to track the vehicle until payment has been received to reactivate it. statement According to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Illinois.
Police eventually recovered both the child and the car without the aid of a tracking service.
A Volkswagen spokesperson told Insider that “we are conducting procedures with third-party providers of carnet support services, including emergency requests from law enforcement.” The automaker said the procedure was “successfully implemented in previous incidents” and blamed the incidents on “serious breaches of process.”
A spokeswoman said the company was “working with the relevant parties to address the situation.” “Volkswagen takes the safety and security of our customers very seriously.”
The incident occurred in the village of Libertyville, Illinois, a few miles from Chicago. February 23, 34-year-old woman reportedly six months pregnant reportparked in the driveway in a Volkswagen car.
She took one of her two children into the house and was about to welcome her second child, a 2-year-old boy, when a white BMW chased her down the driveway. police said they saw
Police said a man got out of his BMW, knocked the woman to the ground, and drove off with the child in the car, running over the woman.
The child was later rescued in nearby Waukegan City, but the carjacker apparently left him behind. A police statement said the seriously injured woman was in stable condition at the hospital and her car was abandoned in a parking lot.