Car owners beware! Lessons from the ‘Kia Boys’ crime spree

If you live in Los Angeles and own a Hyundai Sonata, Kia Optima or one of 18 other models from these vehicle lines, UCLA anthropologist Jeffrey Brantingham has some advice: Get a steering wheel locking device, take advantage of manufacture recalls or trade your car in for one with an engine immobilizer.

Why? Your ride, Brantingham said, is vulnerable to even the lowest-skilled auto thief - at least until 2042.

Brantingham has studied car theft for two decades and recently led an interdisciplinary team looking at the factors behind the surge in thefts of Kias and Hyundais that began in 2020. The surge started in several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, and eventually spread nationwide.

Their recent study in the International Journal of Forecasting, "Forecasting the impact of the viral 'Kia Boys' social media trend on car thefts to 2050," found that the rise in thefts is due to an interplay of complex factors. While social media trends amplified the crime spree, COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, production decisions made by car manufacturers, and traditional print and cable news coverage were significant initial factors.

The anthropological study leverages ideas from foraging ecology, social learning, criminology, and methods from mathematical modeling and computer science.

Using models and data from the Los Angeles Police Department, Brantingham and his colleagues predict the surge in thefts will continue in Los Angeles through at least 2042, and likely through 2050.

The research, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, provides a better understanding of the role that social media plays in offline crime and advises people on how to protect themselves and their property.

An especially 'low-skilled' crime

From 2011 to 2022, car manufacturers Kia and Hyundai left out engine immobilizers in 20 car models. Engine immobilizers are standard anti-theft equipment in most cars; without them, theft is a relatively "low-skilled" crime. During the pandemic - when cars were left for long periods on the street and young people had more unstructured time due to school and business closures - even the most inexperienced car thief had time to experiment and learn to steal these vehicles, easily dismantling the steering wheel casing, exposing the starter and turning the ignition with a simple USB cable.

YouTube and TikTok videos soon emerged - tagged "Kia Boys" or "Kia Challenge" - that amplified the criminal activity and provided step-by-step instructions on how to carry out the thefts. Yet even without the explicit instructions, Brantingham said, viral videos showing "Kia Boys" joyriding in stolen vehicles were enough tell "naïve" car thieves that the models were easy to steal within a few minutes. Social media can be good at creating experts when the skill needed is relatively low, he noted.

The research suggests that traditional print media and cable news also played a key role in the uptick in thefts of these vulnerable cars. The evidence from Los Angeles indicates that the vulnerability was initially discovered without the help of social media. This was also true in Milwaukee (the birthplace of the "Kia Boys" viral online posts) and Denver and may have followed in other places without social media.

Neighborhood impact and the life cycle of cars

To Brantingham, one of the most interesting findings in the study is that crime hotspots move with the underlying new-used car market. New cars tend to be sold in more affluent areas. They are usually held for a couple years and then enter the used car market. As the cars age, their value depreciates, and each time they change hands, they move toward less affluent areas.

That means that cars vulnerable to theft often started life in affluent parts of LA and will end their lives, perhaps 20 to 25 years later, in less affluent areas. This was true for Honda Civics and Toyota Camrys, which were frequently stolen in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s - and will be true for the Kia and Hyundai models, the researchers said.

"For people living in those less affluent areas, the crime hotspot comes to them," said Brantingham. "Said another way, this is not about criminal offenders moving from one area to another - it is about the ripe criminal targets moving."

While higher-income areas of Los Angeles will have long forgotten about the "Kia Boys" vulnerability, lower-income areas will continue to absorb vulnerable cars as they move toward their end of their life cycles.

What can consumers do?

Brantingham said that electronic engine immobilizers have been a huge success in reducing car theft, pointing to Toyota and Honda, who introduced the immobilizers in Camrys in 1992 and Civics in 2001.

His advice is to make sure that the car you buy has an immobilizer, or, if it's an older model that doesn't come equipped with one, to buy a steering wheel lock and use it correctly.

Likewise, he said, "If your car manufacturer has a recall to improve anti-theft technology, make sure to take advantage of it."

A class action lawsuit brought by 36 states against car manufacturers Kia and Hyundai led to a settlement in 2025 where both companies agreed to equip all future cars with industry-standard, engine immobilizer anti-theft technology, as well as provide ignition cylinder protectors and some monetary compensation for cars damaged by thieves.

'Kia Boys,' crime and the human condition

"We live in one of the safest times ever recorded, yet crime is still incredibly common," Brantingham said. "Documenting how people behave in complex online and offline environments is core to a better understanding of the human condition.