This car was stolen and stripped of its parts — not in South Africa, but in Australia

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 6, 2019 at 13:29
3 min read
By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa, AFP Australia

Photos shared thousands of times on social media purport to show a luxury car that was stolen in Johannesburg and stripped of its parts in three hours. The images are real, but the car was stolen in the Australian city of Melbourne, not Johannesburg in South Africa. It was found in the Melbourne suburbs in July, according to an Australian motoring journalist, who had tweeted the photos earlier from his verified Twitter account.

One tweet, which we’ve archived here, has been retweeted over 3,300 times since July 29. The post shows a shiny Mercedes-AMG in one picture and a completely stripped vehicle in the next two images. “Stolen within 3 hours found but the stripping job dammm joburg,” reads the caption.

A screenshot taken on July, 31 2019 of the misleading tweet

A reverse image search of the first picture finds numerous pages using the image alongside a similar narrative about a car theft in Johannesburg. Most of the pages carrying the story appear to be Nigeria-based blogs.

A screenshot taken on July, 31 2019 of the image reverse search results on Google

A screenshot taken on July, 31 2019 of the image reverse search results on Google

Narrowing the image search timeline to before the misleading tweet on July 29, 2019 reveals a tweet by Paul Maric, a motoring journalist and senior road tester for CarAdvice, a leading car website in Australia with a weekly show on a popular Melbourne radio station.

Maric had tweeted the same car pictures two days before the tweet, on July 27. “Last year I reported on a Mercedes-Benz C200 stolen from Melbourne that wound up in Dubai. Here’s another example of stolen to order - stolen from a driveway in Melbourne. Found in Epping shortly after, devoid of most of the car! Thanks to Eddie at GECC for the pics,” the tweet reads.

Last year I reported on a Mercedes-Benz C200 stolen from Melbourne that wound up in Dubai. Here’s another example of stolen to order - stolen from a driveway in Melbourne. Found in Epping shortly after, devoid of most of the car! Thanks to Eddie at GECC for the pics. pic.twitter.com/cokptcgnkB
— Paul Maric (@PaulMaric) July 27, 2019

He shared a similar post on his Facebook page, thanking Eddie at Geelong Exotic Car Club (GECC) again. GECC is a community for “anybody that owns a exotic super car in or around Geelong, Melbourne or Country Victoria”, according to the club’s Facebook page.

A comment on Maric’s tweet suggested the exact location where the stripped car was parked in the picture was Niddrie, a northwestern suburb of Melbourne, and not Epping, another suburb more to the north.

That's not Epping that's in Niddrie next to the Calder/tulla freeway
— Chris Tass (@Tass__1) July 27, 2019

AFP browsed Google Maps Street View images of the freeway in Niddrie, captured in 2016, and despite a few small changes the place matches the stripped car’s location on Fullarton Road.

A screenshot taken on July, 31 2019 of Google Maps Street View, edited to show similarities

An image of the stripped car saved on July, 31 2019, edited to show similarities

AFP's Fact Check team in Australia confirmed the location using similarities like the fencing on the grass, the road and signage on the horizon. More similarities can be seen on the paved sidewalk and the tree behind the car, as circled in red.

We’ve reached out to the GECC and Melbourne police, and will update this post if we get any more information about the car.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail