A man claiming to be a professional basketball player allegedly talked his way past valet workers at a hotel in Savannah, Georgia, and drove off in a $90,000 BMW SUV, per WSB-TV.
Police say the suspect presented a valet ticket for a gray 2026 BMW X5 at the Hyatt Regency Savannah around 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 14 and left in the vehicle. He reportedly told valet employees that he was a professional basketball player with multiple vehicles parked at the hotel.
The BMW belonged to a dealership and had been loaned to an actual hotel guest. Before claiming it, the man was seen walking through the hotel lobby and retrieving belongings from a white Audi. He then returned with the BMW’s valet ticket.
Investigators later learned that the white 2025 Audi A5 had also been reported stolen. The vehicle was discovered unlocked in the hotel’s parking garage later that morning with no visible exterior damage. A separate law enforcement agency had reported it stolen the previous day.
The dealership later tracked the BMW to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Police records also linked the suspect to another hotel valet theft almost two weeks before. A guest at a Fairfield Inn left her black 2019 Toyota C-HR with valet service around 4 p.m. on Aug. 5. When she sent a retrieval code the following morning, she learned that the car was missing.
Valet records showed that someone had used the code at 12:06 a.m., more than nine hours before the guest said she first sent it.
Savannah police described the suspect as a Black man between 20 and 30 years old. On Friday (Sept. 4), the department released surveillance images and asked the public to help identify him in connection with several auto thefts.
