Shaquille O'Neal purchased a black 2025 Land Rover for about $180,000 from an auto broker in Riverside. He paid even more to have it customized to fit his 7-foot-1 frame.
It was supposed to be delivered to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earlier this month, but never arrived at its destination.
Instead, Shaq's latest car purchase appears to be an “expensive car” that is being investigated as stolen Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office in Georgia and was believed to be somewhere in Atlanta as of Monday morning.
In a press release last week, the sheriff's office said the vehicle was “originally ordered through a California auto brokerage company on behalf of a high-profile client.”
New York Post was the first to report that the client was O'Neill and the company was Riverside's. Light engines. Ahmad Abdelrahman, owner of Effortless Motors, confirmed both facts to The Times during a telephone interview.
Abdelrahman said his company has provided O'Neill with numerous custom vehicles over the past two years. He called the NBA and Louisiana legend “an amazing man” and said Effortless Motors is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the car.
“The last guy you want to steal a car from is Shaquille O'Neal, you know?” – Abdelrahman said. “This has never happened to us before. We service all of his cars. We've moved deals for him hundreds of times, and something like this is definitely crazy.”
In a statement emailed to The Times on Monday, the Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office said its Criminal Investigations Division is “actively investigating the theft of a high-value vehicle that was fraudulently removed from a Dahlonega-area facility earlier this month. Investigators have confirmed that the vehicle was transported from a local manufacturing facility under false pretenses and is believed to have been transported to the metropolitan area.” Atlanta”.
The department added that as part of the investigation, multiple search warrants were obtained and executed and several persons of interest were identified.
Abdelrahman told The Times that O'Neill's Land Rover was customized locally by Effortless Motors, but additional assembly work was expected to be done in Georgia before completing the trip to Louisiana.
After learning the vehicle never arrived in Baton Rouge, Abdelrahman said he contacted FirstLine Trucking LLC, the company he hired to transport the vehicle, and was told “their system had been hacked.”
“They never received our order,” Abdelrahman said, “and the hackers intercepted the car, took it and disappeared with the car.”
FirstLine Trucking did not immediately respond to messages from The Times. O'Neal has not publicly commented on the matter.
