A Miami man’s stolen Lamborghini turned up sitting in a shipping container at the Port of Virginia as it was being prepared for export overseas, and getting the car back from his own insurance company has proven harder than getting it back from the thieves, according to 13News Now’s reporting on the case out of Norfolk.

The recovery is part of a much larger pattern at the port. U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Area Port of Norfolk-Newport News recovered 163 stolen vehicles worth a combined $8.8 million in fiscal year 2025 alone, ranking it second nationally for stolen-vehicle interceptions, according to CBP figures reported by WTVR. Among the highest-value seizures CBP logged at that port was a 2024 Lamborghini Urus valued at $269,885 that had been destined for the United Arab Emirates before inspectors flagged it.

How a stolen supercar ends up in a container

Export theft rings typically move fast: a car is stolen, driven or transported to a port, and loaded into a container bound overseas within days, often before the owner’s insurance claim has even been processed. CBP’s own data shows the scale of the problem region-wide — its Baltimore Field Office, which also oversees Virginia’s ports, recovered 307 stolen vehicles being exported in 2025, a mix dominated by SUVs and includes Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys, per that same WTVR report. “Our seaports are not gateways for criminal organizations to export stolen vehicles or illicit products,” CBP Acting Director of Field Operations in Baltimore Matthew Suarez said, according to WTVR.

Getting the car back doesn’t end the fight

Recovery at a port doesn’t automatically mean the original owner drives away happy. When an insurer pays out a total-loss claim on a stolen vehicle, it typically takes legal title to the car as part of that settlement — so if the vehicle later turns up intact, ownership can become a contested question between the insurer, the original owner and whoever now holds the paperwork. That is the dispute 13News Now reports is still playing out for the Miami owner even after his Lamborghini was pulled out of the export pipeline at the Port of Virginia. Most vehicles CBP intercepts at that port were model years 2020 through 2025, and roughly two-thirds were headed for West Africa, underscoring how thoroughly export theft rings target newer, high-value vehicles before insurers or owners even know where to look.

Cases like this one are becoming a bigger part of how insurers think about total-loss claims on exotic cars. A stolen vehicle that gets recovered intact, rather than stripped for parts, creates an unusual accounting problem: the insurer has already paid out and taken title, but the original owner is often the person most emotionally and financially invested in getting the actual car back rather than a check. Some insurers will sell the recovered vehicle back to the original owner at a negotiated buy-back price reflecting the payout already made, while others treat it as a straightforward salvage asset to be auctioned to the highest bidder regardless of who owned it originally. Which path an insurer chooses can depend on internal policy, state salvage-title law, and how quickly the original owner moves to assert a claim once word gets out that the car has resurfaced.