Months after an Ohio man thwarted car thieves with an iPhone, a different an Ohio man was sentenced to five years in prison for helping steal rental cars and sell them to buyers who shipped them overseas.
Here's what prosecutors said happened.
Columbus, Ohio-area man gets 5 years in rental car theft scheme
Souleymane Kah, 36, of Westerville, was sentenced to 60 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $578,221 in restitution for his role in the scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Prosecutors said that between December 2020 and December 2021, Kah and others rented vehicles using stolen or fake identities, transported the cars across state lines and sold them to buyers who later exported them overseas.
They also said Kah and others
used driver's licenses belonging to people who didn't know their information was being used and used fake driver's licenses to rent vehicles.
The group reportedly moved the stolen vehicles across state lines to help sell them. They were paid in cash, through money-transfer apps and even with a luxury vehicle.
Kah pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and two counts of transporting stolen vehicles. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meghan Claiborne Bisio and Kara Traster prosecuted it.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Prison, $578,000 repayment for Ohio man in international rental car scheme
