How Three Alleged Tesla Vandals Got Caught

These people got caught because someone found their car and thus license plate.

Another had left a fingerprinted bottle that went missing when watching surveillance footage.

And then were able to confirm after finding the same outfit from the surveillance footage.

The lessons to be learned are to not use cars anywhere near the scene, leave no trace, fingerprints or digital evidence, including a phone, and make sure any recognizable clothing is well hidden, or even better thoroughly destroyed.

Oh and don't post anything on social media.

This was the guy who threw Molotov cocktails, shot an AR, and broke a window:

The federal affidavit claims that Lansky caused $500,000 worth of damage at the Tesla dealership by damaging a total of seven Teslas, “with one vehicle destroyed.”

Vs

In a third case, an agent with the ATF investigated a widely-reported case in Loveland, Colorado, where a woman named Lucy Nelson is accused of spray painting “NAZI” and “FUCK MUSK” on a Tesla dealership sign, vandalizing several vehicles, and throwing a Molotov cocktail at a cybertruck over the course of several days in late January and early February.

Tesla claimed to investigators that Nelson allegedly caused $5 million worth of damage to vehicles at the dealership.

I wonder how she caused so much damage… 🤔

They did nothing wrong

The reasons from the article:

• automatic license plate readers
• social media monitoring
• license plate records
• fingerprints left on a Molotov cocktail bottle

Many cars nowadays collect and transmit real time geolocation, audio, and other data back to the automaker, and they often store it for years. Only an ID and a warrant (optional) away from being in the hands of law enforcement.

Looking into it there seems to be ways you can physically de-energize that equipment like pulling cables, but it usually involves taking your dash apart and you will lose a lot of modern functionality of the head unit.