Ingenious, But He May Not Have Thought It Through

The Florida police took a selfie with the passengers,
a U.K. couple about to be married, at the arrest. (WFLA)

Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to criminal ingenuity. In this case a Florida crook knew that car-rental companies could prevent a car from starting once it had been turned off. [bold added]

A Florida Uber driver is accused of using a stolen rental car to give rides and then leaving the car running for weeks to avoid it being disabled, deputies said.

The 27-year-old Uber driver was renting a Chevy Equinox from a company in Orange County when he stopped making payments, according to an Oct. 26 news release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office...

The company had installed devices in their rental vehicles that could be remotely activated to stop the car from restarting in the case that someone stopped paying for the vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.

But the driver knew about this feature, so instead of returning the Equinox or making the payments, he chose to leave the vehicle running for “three straight weeks” to prevent it being disabled, according to the release.

During that time, he was using the car to drive for Uber.

Sure, the guy "borrowed" the vehicle, but he did honest work for three weeks.

One has to wonder, though, what his exit strategy was since the car rental company had his information. It notified the police that the car was stolen, which led to the arrest.