the.com/chop shops
where stolen cars go to lose their identity and leave in pieces.
means an illegal garage that dismantles stolen vehicles fast and sells the parts before anyone notices the whole car is gone.
from american slang from mid-20th-century auto theft rings, chop meaning to hack apart, shop meaning the workshop doing it, first widely documented in 1960s-70s urban crime reports.
speeda car can be stripped in under an hour
vin swapparts get relabeled with fake vehicle ID numbers
profit mathparts often sell for more than the whole car
tv tropea staple villain lair in heist and cop shows
for instance
gone in 60 seconds — 1974 and 2000 films built entire plots around chop shop networks
nypd chop shop busts — 2020s task forces raided queens and brooklyn operations yearly
south african hijack rings — johannesburg chop shops linked to thousands of car thefts annually