Exclusive A series of "foreign rental cars stolen" across the country... "Thirty people suspected of smuggling."

[Anchor]
Recently, there have been a series of incidents in which rental car companies rent expensive vehicles, remove and steal location trackers.

It is suspected that the crime was aimed at smuggling vehicles, and it is estimated that 30 similar damages have been reported nationwide this year alone.

Reporter Kim Yi-young reports exclusively.

[Reporter]
Last month, a man in his 20s came to a rental car company in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do, and rented a foreign car worth 300 million won.

However, about two hours before the scheduled return time, the location tracker signal, which informs the real-time location of the vehicle, suddenly cut off.

[Mr. A / CEO of the car rental company: I hurried to Incheon, the last location where the car was standing, after seeing the alarm on my phone, but there was no car in the place where I moved.]

Mr. A heard that a car that the man borrowed from another company was found in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do, and after searching nearby, he found the car in an empty lot next to a gas station.

It's a car recovered by the company.

The GPS installed here was abandoned in the trunk with the line cut off, and the interior parts were also torn off in several places.

In April, a foreign car was stolen in a similar manner and recovered it from the underground parking lot of an apartment in Incheon, where there were lines of cars with fallen license plates.

[Mr. A / CEO of the damaged rental car company: Because there are so many cases like this, an official letter has been sent to the rental car company (from the union). It seems to be a suspicious case of smuggling. It was a relief that our vehicle found it like this before it was smuggled out....]

In September, a company in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, rented a foreign car that had only been released three months ago and was stolen.

I went all the way to Cheonan, where the last GPS signal was, but the car disappeared.

[Mr. B / CEO of the damaged rental car company: (The vehicle) was not moving, and the engine was on, but it was stopped on the spot. It feels weird.. The amount of damage is about 220 million now.]

A man in his 40s, who is suspected of borrowing two foreign cars worth 390 million won from two rental car companies in Seoul and Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, and handing them over to trafficking brokers, was also handed over to the prosecution last week in custody.

However, this was not the only case of theft by rental car companies.

According to the YTN report, the number of theft damages from rental car companies nationwide this year alone reached 70 cases.

Among them, 30 cases of suspected smuggling were found, and the actual number of cases of damage is expected to be higher than this.

I'm YTN's Kim Lee Young.

Reporter for shooting
: Jeong Jin-hyun
Video editing: Wang Xion