Copyright The Mercury News
OAKLAND — On a recent Friday, a task force of local police officers converged on the 5200 block of International Boulevard, searching through piles of car parts, vehicles, and trailer, seizing guns, blank money orders, and two allegedly stolen motorcycles, according to court records. From the raid, prosecutors charged 55-year-old Doran Lee Williams with being a felon in possession of a firearm, possessing stolen vehicles, and having 100 blank stolen money orders, all part of a six-count felony complaint, court records show. In court filings, Oakland police said that it appeared to them Williams was using his unregistered auto repair business as a front for a stolen vehicle chop shop. He was released from jail four days after the raid and remains free while the case is pending, court records show. Like many suspected chop shops, this allegedly illegal business was hiding in plain sight, and police say it continued to operate even after complaints from residents and city staffers, and warnings from authorities. This police raid was just one of numerous recent investigations targeting the sprawling and sophisticated illegal industries propping up a stolen car economy that was worth an estimated $1.56 billion last year, according to the California Highway Patrol. The CHP estimated last year that it recovered 84.59 percent of all reported stolen cars, and that only around 6 percent were stripped for parts. The more common fate of cars not used in crimes and destroyed is to be re-sold as used vehicles through online peer-to-peer marketplaces, often after the vehicle identification numbers are switched out. In Contra Costa, an auto theft task force has been investigating a smog business on Lone Tree Way in Antioch that also provides third-party vehicle registration. This came after stolen cars in Hayward, San Jose, Morgan Hill, Milpitas, Sacramento and Mountain View were all found to have been re-registered with fraudulent VINs at the same business. Police eventually sent an undercover officer to the Antioch business, who was able to get a car registered there despite not having any proof of ownership and the employee remarking how it looked “suspicious,” authorities said. Police say at least a half-dozen more suspicious VIN car registrations were found to be connected to the business, as well as 15 suspicious Harley Davidson motorcycles. Several of the stolen cars were recovered only after an unsuspecting victim bought them through Facebook Marketplace. In one instance, authorities recovered a stolen Lexus in Fremont after responding to an ad with a $42,000 pricing and sending cops to meet the seller near a local elementary school. The car had been re-registered through the Antioch business, authorities said. The investigation into the 15 suspiciously registered motorcycles led to a Feb. 19, 2025 police raid on Airport Way in Manteca, targeting a member of a motorcycle club. Authorities say they seized two illegal guns, numerous car and motorcycle parts, and wrote in court filings that the property appeared to be a “motorcycle chop shop.” The suspected operator of the motorcycle chop shop had been texting the same man police arrested in Fremont, including an exchange where they complained how police in Los Altos had recently recovered another stolen Lexus that “we just got,” authorities said in court filings. In December 2024, police in Oakland arrested a man near 86th Avenue on suspicion of driving a stolen car, then traveled to his suspected destination, on the 1100 block of 86th Avenue, where two men were found stripping suspected stolen cars, authorities said. Nine other stolen cars were found on the property, according to court records. Last July, police in Oakland responded to a “known chop shop” on the 800 block of 100th Avenue, for a report of a shooting. The suspected co-owner, a Rodeo resident, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly shooting at a man he was trying to evict from the property. The victim was injured by broken glass, not by a bullet, and the case is still pending, records show. On Sept. 17, police in Oakland had pulled over one suspected stolen car — from San Francisco — when another allegedly stolen vehicle drove by, slowly, and the driver peered at police. The Honda he was driving turned out to have been stolen from Antioch, and the driver was arrested for a domestic violence warrant, authorities said. Both cars had been VIN-switched and re-registered under the same third-party service, authorities said. The suspected chop shop on the 5200 block of International Boulevard drew suspicion and was the subject of multiple complaints over several months, according to police. Back in April, authorities in Solano County raided the property in an unrelated investigation and seized body armor, ammunition and an undisclosed amount of suspected illegal drugs, authorities said. In May, a woman was pulled over for driving a stolen car two blocks from the business. She allegedly admitted to being a courier of stolen cars, employed by a nearby chop shop, and was in possession of a key programmer and a shaved key, two tools associated with car thieves, authorities said. In June, Williams was arrested at the property on suspicion of possessing stolen vehicles and other stolen property, and for having ammunition as a two-striker, due to robbery and statutory rape convictions in 1989 and 1993, authorities said in court filings. A month later, in late July, Oakland police responded to a noise complaint there and told Williams that the vehicle overflow on his property was a problem — dead cars had spilled out onto the sidewalk and street, partially blocking the roadway. Williams reportedly told the officers he fixes and re-sells vehicles, and promised to have the area cleaned up within 24 hours. Three days before the police raid, a police helicopter took pictures of the property, depicting a boat, two RVs, and numerous vehicles in the lot, with several cars parked on the adjacent sidewalk and a pickup truck with its hood lifted double-parked against two other vehicles and a dumpster, near the corner of International Boulevard and 52nd Avenue, according to court records.
