Imagine you’re walking down the street when you spot a bright orange Lamborghini Gallardo. You love exotic cars and didn’t know there was an orange Gallardo in your city, so you walk around the parked car and take some pictures. But driving home, something nags at you. Something wasn’t right about the car. Then it hits you: You pull out your phone and look at the pictures. The VIN number under the windshield is a mess, in the wrong font and too short. Yikes—that Lamborghini was stolen.

No, this isn’t a scene out of some gumshoe detective novel. This is a real day in the life of Ed Bolian, a retired Lamborghini salesman and founder of the VINwiki website.

An orange Gallardo, and a mystery

Ed first spotted the Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera in the parking lot of a Target. He was intrigued—it was orange, rare for a 2008 Superleggera, and loaded with high-end options like ceramic brakes, a $15,000 add-on. But the car also had a dealership license plate. That was odd. Ed decided to investigate.

He got out and took a closer look. That’s when he noticed the VIN. “It was printed in the wrong font,” Ed said. That sent alarm bells ringing. VINs on U.S. cars must also validate mathematically. “It’s like a credit card number. There’s a check digit,” Ed explained. This one didn’t check out. Worse, it was only 16 digits instead of the required 17. Something was off.

Ed called a friend, the chief of police in a nearby town. “It sounds like it’s probably a stolen car,” the chief said of the Lamborghini. The police agreed to look into it, but Ed wasn’t satisfied. Luckily, he had another tool at his disposal.

You see, Ed Bolian had just founded his own VIN-checking websites. He started cross-referencing VINwiki’s database, narrowing the search to 25 cars that matched the specs. Only one had ever been reported stolen: Lamborghini Gallardo #6668.

That wasn’t enough. Ed wanted answers.

Finding the stolen Lamborghini a second time

To track the car’s whereabouts, Ed went to his local tag office. Smooth-talking the clerk, he convinced her to reveal the dealer’s name. “She was very reluctant,” Ed said, “but I convinced her to let me know.” Armed with the lead, Ed decided to roll the dice. He drove to the dealership.

When Ed knocked on the door, he wasn’t sure what to expect. What manner of criminals were hiding this stolen Lamborghini? Then the door opened.

Ed found himself face-to-face with a detailer who was subletting part of the building. The dealership owner wasn’t in. So Ed did some more smooth-talking. He claimed he wanted to buy a Lamborghini. The man let him in and walked him to the back. There it was—the orange Gallardo, tucked away. But Ed wasn’t prepared for what he saw next.

Two stolen Lamborghinis

Parked next to the Gallardo was another 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo, this one a silver Spyder. Ed looked closely and saw its VIN had also been tampered with. Someone had gone to great lengths to make these cars look legitimate, even replacing VIN plates—something that requires removing the entire windshield.

Inside the Gallardo, Ed found the smoking gun.

Ed opened the glovebox and saw the owner’s manuals. One had handwritten VIN information from the first owner. “Whoever had gotten this car purchased it as a stolen car and hadn’t bothered to throw that away,” Ed explained. The manual confirmed the stolen VIN: #6668.

A common scam

Ed handed over his findings to law enforcement, who were thrilled with what he called a “silver platter case of auto theft.” But the scam was about more than stolen Lamborghinis. Owners of expensive cars that depreciate rapidly—like these Superleggeras—sometimes face loans far exceeding the car’s value. Instead of selling the car at a loss, they may report it stolen, collect insurance money, and hide the car.

“It’s not uncommon,” Ed said. “The most convenient solution seemed to be to call their insurance and say it had been stolen.” Thanks to Ed and VINwiki’s crowd-sourced sleuthing, the stolen Gallardos were finally found. But for Ed, this wasn’t just a win for the good guys. It was proof of VINwiki’s power to crack mysteries one car at a time.

You can hear Ed tell stories about multiple stolen cars–including a Ferrari wrapped in aluminum foil on a farm–in the video embedded below: