Ali Sobh’s McLaren was taken from the driveway behind his home in Detroit’s Boston-Edison neighborhood. The next time he saw it, someone else was spinning it in circles in front of a crowd. Sobh is a Detroit businessman with 1.1 million social media followers. He told WDIV the car is worth $500,000 and that no one else in the country owns its color. He called it a collector’s car. clickondetroit
What bothered him more than the theft was the show. “Being paraded around, it’s like nobody can do nothing to us,” Sobh told the station. clickondetroit
Tips From 1.1 Million Followers Pointed Police to Six Mile and Telegraph
Sobh used the video to go looking for the car. He asked his audience for help locating the vehicle. After receiving tips, Sobh gave Detroit police a possible location near Six Mile and Telegraph. Officers recovered the car there. That corner is on Detroit’s western edge, where Telegraph Road forms the line with Redford Township. WDIV reported the recovery on Nov. 9. Neither WDIV report gives the date of the theft or the recovery. clickondetroit
Related Articles
- Ford Worker Allegedly Walked Millions in New Parts Out of Three Plants, Then Police Found a Shop ‘Stacked With Brand-New Auto Parts’
- A Fort Myers Drone Allegedly Caught an F-250 Burnout Next to 500 Protesters, and Florida Law Says One Truck Counts as Street Racing
In the station’s Nov. 10 follow-up, the takeover footage is part of a police investigation, and Detroit police are working to identify and find those responsible for the theft. The article reports no arrests or charges. Detroit Police Commander Phillip Rodriguez told WDIV the department wants residents to feel that they and their property are safe. clickondetroit
My read is that the paint that made this car worth stealing also made it nearly impossible to profit from. If Sobh is right that no other McLaren in the country wears this color, the car can’t be sold, retitled, or parted out without someone recognizing it. Whoever had it drove it into the one setting most likely to get it identified: a takeover, where a crowd films everything. The same phones that put the McLaren online helped bring it home.
What Michigan Law Says About Whoever Had the Car
Two Michigan statutes come into play once police name a suspect, and the second one carries a cost most takeover regulars wouldn’t guess.
The first is MCL 750.413, the state’s unlawful-driving-away law. It covers anyone who takes and drives off another person’s motor vehicle without permission, and anyone who assists or is a party to it. It’s a felony punishable by up to 5 years in state prison. www.legislature.mi.govwww.legislature.mi.gov
The second is MCL 750.535, Michigan’s receiving-and-concealing law. It reaches people who never touched the car in the driveway. Subsection 7 covers anyone who buys, receives, possesses, conceals, or aids in the concealment of a stolen motor vehicle while knowing, or having reason to believe, that it’s stolen. The penalty is up to 5 years in prison or a fine of up to $10,000 or three times the vehicle’s value, whichever is greater, or both. www.legislature.mi.gov
Here’s what the three-times rule does to a car like this. On a $500,000 McLaren (the figure Sobh gave WDIV; a court would set its own value), the possible fine is $1.5 million. On a typical stolen Charger, the same rule produces a fraction of that. The law ties the fine to the car’s value, not to how the person got it.
Prosecutors also have a choice to make. A separate part of the same section makes possessing stolen property worth $20,000 or more a felony punishable by up to 10 years. But a person charged or convicted under the motor-vehicle subsection can’t also be convicted under another part of the section for the same vehicle. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office would have to pick one. www.legislature.mi.gov
The Video That Found the Car Is Itself Regulated in Wayne County
The footage that got this McLaren back is the kind of footage Wayne County has tried to discourage. In February 2024, the county commission expanded its anti-drag-racing ordinance. The revision adds liability for people who help street races happen, including by blocking traffic, filming or live-streaming races, or promoting them. Those involved face civil penalties in the Third Circuit Court. The county’s release says plain onlookers aren’t the target. waynecountymi
Detroit police describe their own approach more broadly. After a July 26 operation at Milwaukee and Wetherby, Capt. John Stewart told WDIV: “If you’re caught doing the spinning or spectating it, your car is forfeited.” That single night produced 65 vehicles investigated, 9 impounded, and 53 ordinance violations. clickondetroit
That forfeiture machinery could have caught Sobh as well. If officers had impounded his McLaren in the middle of a donut, it would have entered the seizure system as a takeover car. Michigan’s forfeiture statute, MCL 600.4702, exempts property when the owner didn’t know of or consent to the crime, as long as that ignorance isn’t willful blindness. A stolen car fits that exemption easily. Getting the car back is a separate problem. In Ingram v. Wayne County, decided Aug. 31, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the county violated the Constitution by seizing personal vehicles without a timely way to contest the seizure, and must hold an interim hearing within two weeks. Before that ruling, owners who were never charged with anything could wait months. www.legislature.mi.gov michiganpublic
How Recoveries Go for Detroit Owners Without a Following
Sobh had 1.1 million people looking for his car. Most Detroit theft victims don’t. In 2025, Detroit police told BridgeDetroit that stolen vehicle recoveries are typically “low priority” for the department, as Planet Detroit reported. The department also said that in the last three months of 2024, it recovered about as many vehicles as were reported stolen. planetdetroit
Recovering a car is not the same as getting it back to its owner. This spring, WXYZ reported on a 64-year-old Ferndale retiree whose car was taken from her driveway. Six months later, she learned it had been found on Griggs Avenue near 7 Mile Road in Detroit. Detroit police records showed the department recovered it the same day it disappeared. Ferndale police took the theft report and Detroit police found the car, and the information never connected. wxyz
Related Articles
- A Texas Deputy Told a Driver ‘I Don’t Give Tickets. I Give Warnings,’ Then a Federal Jury Held the County Liable
- A 21-Minute Alexandria Stop Over a 100-Foot Blinker Rule Allegedly Included a Frisk, and the Fifth Circuit Won’t Toss Most of the Case
Sobh skipped that gap by doing the locating himself and handing police an address. That worked because his car was one of a kind and his audience was huge. A gray Malibu with a few hundred followers behind it doesn’t get the same result.
What Happens Next in the McLaren Case
The investigation is open, and the takeover video is evidence. Once police identify a suspect, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office decides whether to charge and under which statute. That includes whether to go after whoever drove the car at the takeover under the receiving-and-concealing law, and whether anyone who helped stage the takeover faces the county’s civil penalties. Sobh told WDIV he plans to add security measures at his home. clickondetroit
If your car gets stolen and shows up at a takeover, two things on this record are in your favor. Michigan’s innocent-owner exemption covers a car stolen and then used in a crime, and in Wayne County, Ingram gives owners of seized personal vehicles a right to a prompt hearing. The Ferndale case is the catch: when the city that finds a car isn’t the city that took the theft report, the two may never connect.
Wayne County’s ordinance can penalize people who film or livestream street races, yet a takeover video is what got this McLaren back to its owner. Should filming a takeover stay punishable, or should police want every phone in that crowd recording?
About the Author
