‘Coordinated attack on the neighborhood’: A surge in golf cart thefts leaves Fort Lauderdale residents on edge
FORT LAUDERDALE — On a school morning in the waterfront neighborhood of Lauderdale Harbours, John Calabrese, 51, emerged from his home to drive his son to kindergarten. But when he walked out onto the driveway, the golf cart wasn’t there.
Someone had walked onto the same driveway the night before, hotwired the $12,000 cart, and stolen it, Calabrese told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday. Later that August morning, he tracked the cart to the backyard of an apartment only five minutes away, joined forces with a Fort Lauderdale police officer, and took it back home. But the thief would remain at large, part of what he thinks is an organized plot unfolding across upscale streets like his own.
“This is not some random, ‘Oh, teenagers kid around, let’s steal somebody’s golf cart,'” said Calabrese, who is also vice president of the Lauderdale Harbours Improvement Association. “This is like a coordinated, planned attack on the neighborhood.”
The crime is part of a recent surge in golf cart thefts across Fort Lauderdale and elsewhere, police say. The thieves, often teenagers, target wealthy neighborhoods like Lauderdale Harbours and nearby Rio Vista, where they have grown brazen, residents say, stealing golf carts as well as anything from BMWs to pontoon boats in broad daylight — even when their owners are home. Some think the thefts could be part of an organized scheme to sell the golf carts for parts or even export them internationally.
In response, owners are spending thousands of dollars on surveillance cameras, equipping their golf carts with boots, steering wheel locks and “kill” switches, and parking them in between their cars so that no one can drive off in them.
As Calabrese’s wife called the police that morning to file a report, he took his son to school, then returned home to get his golf cart back.
By about 9 a.m., he had used his Apple AirTags to trace the cart to an apartment complex near Broward Health Medical Center on Andrews Avenue, where he drove by and spotted it in the backyard, next to another golf cart. He called the police himself and gave them the address.
An officer showed up about 10 minutes later, apologizing for the wait. The two then went into the backyard, the officer protecting Calabrese, as he walked up to his cart. The screwdriver the thief had used to pry open the dashboard to hotwire the car was still out, Calabrese said. The stereo was stolen.
The officer dusted the screwdriver for fingerprints but declined to knock on doors, Calabrese said, saying that even though the stolen cart was in the backyard, it wasn’t enough evidence; the person who stole it would just deny doing so.
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Calabrese was able to drive his golf cart back home, but isn’t sure what became of the investigation. Still, the ordeal disturbed him. In the months since the theft, he has become heavily involved in efforts to raise awareness about the situation in the neighborhood.
“It’s kind of like champagne problems, right?” Calabrese said. “I’m sure most people are like, ‘oh, I feel so bad.’ … Well, you know, these golf carts, mine was twelve grand, some run as much as twenty-five. I mean, it’s crazy how people trick them out and everything.”
Surge in thefts
The thefts have increased as golf carts have become more expensive and sought after, and as people realize the ease with which they can be stolen relative to their value; many are as expensive as regular cars.
In the last six months, Fort Lauderdale Police have recorded over 40 golf cart thefts, the department said in a Facebook post warning the community, a noticeable increase.
“We would like to remind golf cart owners to be vigilant and take extra precautions when storing their golf carts,” the post read.
The door-less vehicles are often accessed by a key that can be used on many carts, a key that has been around since the 80s, according to Katelyn Turk, the owner of The Cart Collection, a golf cart dealership in Coral Springs.
Golf carts have almost doubled in price in recent years, she said, often over $15,000, though people will try to sell them to other countries for even more than that.
The carts now contain lithium batteries, which might be a reason thieves are stealing them, she added. The batteries alone can cost $3,000.
Turk has seen an uptick in customers arriving with golf carts damaged from theft attempts. Meanwhile, she said, her own business has been the victim of crimes: People have begun calling in, trying to purchase golf carts using stolen credit cards.
The dealers have been able catch some of the attempts, but not all; in a recent case, Turk realized two weeks later that the credit card was stolen.
“At this point it’s probably in another country,” she said.
‘That’s why I paid for a tracking system’
Carl Patregnani, 59, woke up at 3:45 a.m. last month with his phone tracker blaring: his $40,000 side-by-side was on the move. He flung on his clothes, dashed out of his Rio Vista home, and followed the vehicle, an off-roading version of a golf cart that he had equipped with multi-colored LED lights, to a nearby Domino’s pizza store.
Patregnani was careful. In addition to the tracker and his Ring doorbell, he always parked his side-by-side in between the family’s other cars to keep people from driving off in it. But earlier that evening, Patregnani’s son had taken his girlfriend out, and when he returned, he didn’t re-park the other car to box in the side-by-side.
The brief moment of weakness was enough. The thief or thieves must have pushed it out of the driveway, Patregnani said. His son had parked the side-by-side close to the Ring doorbell camera, but he thinks whoever took the vehicle used a Wi-Fi jammer to disable the camera, because he has no surveillance footage of the early morning hours when the vehicle was stolen; he only realized it was gone when the tracker alerted him.
By the time Patregnani arrived at the Domino’s, the side-by-side was gone. He returned home, called 911, and met with police, watching as the tracker moved to the Fort Lauderdale Airport, and then to someone’s house in Miami Gardens. He gave police the address and found pictures of the home on Google Earth; his tracker placed the side-by-side in the garage about 4 a.m.
But they didn’t send units to the home that morning; there wasn’t enough evidence.
“That’s why I paid for a tracking system,” Patregnani said, frustrated but resigned to the outcome.
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He won’t be getting his side-by-side back, but insurance will reimburse him and he intends to buy another one, in addition to overhauling his security system. With the Ring camera susceptible to jamming, he also wants a new camera system and new trackers.
Patregnani estimates it will cost him $3,000 or $4,000 “just to try to secure it.”
‘Large group of individuals’
The golf cart thefts cross cities and counties, extending beyond Fort Lauderdale. In October, Lighthouse Point Police officers arrested a 17-year-old from Miami in connection to seven different golf cart thefts, the police department announced on Facebook.
“After several months of persistent and thorough investigation, Lighthouse Point Detectives have successfully apprehended the suspect responsible for the recent surge in golf cart thefts that have been affecting our community,” the post read. “Thanks to the diligent efforts of our team of dedicated officers and detectives, this individual is now in custody.”
It’s unclear whether the Fort Lauderdale thefts could be connected to the same person. Spokespeople for the police department did not respond to questions Tuesday.
But Commander Christopher Oh, a spokesperson for Lighthouse Point Police, said that the thefts are likely part of a bigger scheme.
“I think we have reason to believe that there’s a large group of individuals,” he said. “It’s not just one person.”
Asked why police sometimes don’t charge the thieves, he said, “I think that it’s difficult to tell if the carts have been stolen or not,” but added, “anything that’s suspicious should obviously be reported to the police.”
Calabrese feels that the issue needs more attention. He worries that the golf cart thefts could escalate into home invasions or turn violent. Many of his neighbors have guns, he said.
“Do you want to have like a gun fight in a nice neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale where someone gets killed?” he asked. “I don’t want it to get to that point where it takes that kind of extreme action to happen for people to really take notice.”
To keep your golf cart safe, police recommend securing the steering wheel with a steering wheel lock; ensuring your surveillance cameras are functioning; consider installing motion lights or an aftermarket GPS; putting the golf cart away or parking it in a lighted area; staying aware and reporting all suspicious activity.
