The Kia Boys will steal your car for clout

“If I see a Kia, then I’m takin your shit.”  

That’s the first line of the song “Shake yo Nay Nay” by Milwaukee rappers Marry Mac and Shawn P. With over 870,000 listens on Spotify and 670,000 on YouTube, it’s one of dozens of melodies celebrating the act of stealing Kia and Hyundai cars that can be found on a variety of streaming playlists — often under the category “Kia Boys.”

It’s not the only car theft-themed cultural product to make its way online. Joyrides in stolen vehicles end up on TikTok, with videos edited harmoniously to the music. In the videos, Kias are seen jumping grass hills, drifting into yards, jerking left and right through crowded intersections, violently skirting curbs, or narrowly missing unsuspecting parked cars. 

The flashier the car, the better the joyride, the higher the view count. Thefts of Kias and Hyundais have soared in recent years thanks to a crucial design flaw. There’s, of course, an economic and racial factor to the phenomenon: a majority of Kia Boys are young Black males living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods like Columbus’ South Linden community. And TikTok, in particular, has served as an accelerant. 

This, combined with covid-era boredom, has created a nightmare scenario of auto theft and property destruction that have confounded law enforcement and forced the automaker to rethink its cost-cutting strategies. Last month, Hyundai and Kia agreed to a $200 million settlement due to this epidemic of theft. But within this phenomenon are specific cultural markings distinct from common car theft, complete with their own soundtrack and slang — a phenomenon known as the Kia Boys. 

Let’s rewind to 2019 — a simpler time in the realm of stealing cars — when Columbus, Ohio, logged a respectable 3,500 car thefts. As of last summer, only halfway through the year, that number had grown to over 4,000. In just three weeks between July and August, an average of 17 Kias and Hyundais were being stolen every day in Columbus. 

Milwaukee saw roughly 3,500 stolen vehicles stolen in 2019; only 6 percent were Hyundais and Kias. By 2021, there were almost 10,500 stolen; 67 percent were Hyundais and Kias. 

“This year is the highest [in the city’s history],” says Detective Bruce Beard of Columbus Division of Police’s Property Crimes Bureau. “I think we’re around 8,000 stolen cars this year already,” he told me in November. 

Kia and Hyundai dealers, their service garages, once manageable and orderly, are now flooded with totaled cars. “Before the videos on TikTok, we’d rarely ever seen that,” Cody Taylor, service advisor at Germain Kia in Columbus, said. “But as soon as that video came out on TikTok, that’s when it all started going crazy.” Victims can wait upwards of five months for the car to get repaired from the backlog of mangled vehicles and car part orders.

Owners of Kias and Hyundais who have yet to have their car stolen are becoming increasingly sparse in cities where these thefts have spread. Now it’s rare to find a Kia without a red or yellow steering wheel lock secured tightly through the driver’s side window. 

The topic looms over every community Facebook page, every Next Door group, every local media channel. Kia and Hyundai thefts are becoming an unstoppable phenomenon in Midwestern cities, and it has quickly spread across the country. 

The secret to the Kia Boys lies inside the steering column of Kias, manufactured between 2011-2021, and Hyundais, built between 2015-2021. Tucked away beneath the ignition cylinder is a tiny knob ideally suited for any USB-A plug to turn and start the ignition. After breaking the window and prying open the steering column, a curious Kia Boy can use the victim’s own phone charger to start the car, a procedure that is disturbingly unsophisticated.

In the Donut Media YouTube video called “I Stole a Kia With a TikTok Hack,” the host Jeremiah Burton delicately goes through the process of starting a Hyundai with a USB, unscrewing the steering column and carefully taking out the ignition cylinder assembly (whereas the Kia Boys would strip it with a screwdriver and then bluntly jam the tool in). He starts the car and laughs, “I’m a Kia Boy now.” 

Burton concludes that the design was a cost-cutting measure due to a lack of regulations. He pointed out that Canada requires immobilizers in the same model cars, an electric security device that prevents engines from starting without the presence of a smart key.

The Kia Boys aren’t a “gang” in the formal sense. They have no hierarchical bureaucracy, initiation rituals, or capital. The Kia Boys, sometimes referred to as the Kia Boyz (Milwaukee) or the Real Kia Boys (Columbus), are a decentralized crusade of underage car thieves. The label “Kia Boys” less implies an official organization as it does a blanket term for any teenager who steals Kias and Hyundais for joyrides. Most of them are said to be between the ages of 12-15 — too young to have a driver’s license or work and too energetic during the pandemic-era lockdown to be invigorated by Zoom classes. 

The term Kia Boy may have been spread by the media, but it’s also embraced by the kids stealing Kias. “There are small groups of kids that do call themselves [Kia Boys],” Beard told me, “but there are also a lot of kids who will go out and steal a Kia or a Hyundai… and then they’ll say, hey, I’m a Kia Boy just because I stole a car.” Not all who steal Kias are Kia Boys, but all who are Kia Boys steal Kias (and Hyundais).

The Kia Boys are distinct from traditional car theft rings. Whereas most car thieves are employed in the trade for economic ends, the Kia Boys steal solely for the joyride. In fact, the cars almost always find their way back to their owner, albeit totaled, found in someone else’s yard, filled with empty bottles of booze and the smell of weed. 

I first discovered the Kia Boys when my sister’s Hyundai was found damaged in someone’s backyard. The only thing stolen from within the car was a bag of Creme Savers Strawberries and Creme Hard Candy. 

“[The Kia Boys] are more [about] stealing a car, and they’ll drive it around and crash it, or they’ll drive it around for a few days or a few weeks and dump and steal another car,” Beard says. Other gangs that steal Kias and Hyundais, however, like the Game Over Kids in Columbus, are more engaged with robberies, assaults, and homicides. “There’s definitely a difference between the two,” he told me.

In a viral YouTube video, Milwaukee native and YouTuber Tommy G interviewed a group of Kia Boys. “People know when the Kia Boys come through, get up out the way,” a masked boy told Tommy. One of them offered to show how they steal the cars, motioning how they break the steering column and insert the USB. This section of the video spread through TikTok as a kind of viral “how-to” video. 

The original YouTube video now has over 6 million views, eventually warranting a response from Milwaukee officials, including the mayor, who reacted by saying, “First of all, it was wild… It was sad, and the actions they were taking with disregard for their own safety and the safety of their fellow citizens was stupid.” One of the kids driving a stolen Kia in the video, a 17-year-old, was arrested later after the car was involved in a crash with a school bus. 

In that same YouTube video, Tommy spoke to a victim of the Kia Boys who pointed out that it can take months to get your car fixed or replaced, a protracted period of time where “[you] can’t take the kids to school, can’t make appointments, got to call into work; it’s sad and tragic.” 

In March 2022, Marianne Sunderman’s 2019 Kia Sportage was stolen from her apartment complex in Columbus. She posted her story in the Facebook group “Ohio Kia/Hyundai Theft Victims.” After the vehicle was found, it took a week to find a dealership to tow it to and almost three months for it to get fixed. 

“Due to the parts and labor shortage, it took forever,” she said. When she eventually got the car back, relieved to have her hard-earned vehicle, the joy was short-lived. It was swiftly stolen again. 

The same officer from the first theft filed the report. “First time was harder than now. This time, I just feel annoyed as hell,” she told me. Unlike last time, the car wasn’t found. “Ultimately,” she said, “[I was] glad it wasn’t found so it can be bought out and I can move on.”

In addition to the hassles of lacking a vehicle, victims must also battle with insurance providers. Detective Beard said that insurance companies are starting to deny claims if the stolen vehicle wasn’t processed for fingerprints. Cars that are totaled by the Kia Boys are rarely processed for prints due to the high frequency of thefts, the unlikelihood of finding the culprits, and the fact that most Kia Boys are juveniles who are almost never required to pay restitution. Insurance companies use this lack of processing for fingerprints as a loophole.

“We’ve seen several insurance companies now call us and say, ‘Hey, they didn’t have a car processed? No? Okay, then we’re gonna deny their claim.’ So that falls back on the victim,” Beard said. That’s not to mention uninsured victims who have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Detective Beard and other police departments have found that most of the Kia Boys are too young to have a license. This means that their driving is turbulent and untrained. The younger the driver, the quicker the car gets totaled, and the more cars they subsequently steal. 

Their exploits have naturally led to more serious consequences than property damage and insurance issues. On the night of July 25th, 2022, a stolen Hyundai traveling at 80 mph lost control and crashed into a pole in north Columbus. At impact, two of the children in the Hyundai were ejected from the car while a third remained inside. Two died, and the third was in serious condition. All were 14 years old. One of the boys was supposed to start his freshman year in high school the following week. His sister warned, “Stay out of them cars, man. Stay out of them cars.” 

Blame, in the case of the Kia Boys, has slid unevenly in the court of public opinion. 

A TikTok spokesperson provided a brief statement, saying that the company “does not condone this behavior which violates our policies and will be removed if found on our platform.” 

But their policies aren’t as black and white as one would expect. In fact, TikTok employs 40,000 human moderators responsible for deciding what content does or doesn’t violate their community guidelines. In the case of the Kia Boys, a TikTok showing how to steal a Kia might be removed, but a TikTok showing how to steal a Kia in the name of warning Kia owners about the hack would be allowed. 

Unless the video is inciting illegal actions, many Kia Boy TikToks are protected by the community guidelines. TikToks of Kia Boys driving around in stolen cars don’t violate the company’s policies, as there’s usually no proof that the vehicles are stolen. 

But the app is only one platform. Most choose to point the finger at the accused car thieves and, by extension, their parents. Police and city officials host community meetings with parents on the Kia Boys phenomenon. Local media does very little to communicate the complexities of the issue. Meanwhile, the car manufacturers have been slapped with multiple class action lawsuits — one was filed in California, while Cleveland, Milwaukee, New York City, and Columbus are filing suits against both car companies. 

Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein claims that the car manufacturers intentionally sold vehicles that lacked safety features like engine immobilizers and sensors to detect window glass breakage. 

“For years, Kia and Hyundai cut corners and sold vehicles they knew were so unsafe they could be stolen with ease by a teenager with access to simple tools and a TikTok account,” he said in a statement. “Kia and Hyundai’s negligence in pursuit of corporate profit is unconscionable.”

In response to their self-induced woes, the car manufacturers had shrugged their shoulders. In a statement, Kia said: “I​​t is unfortunate that criminals are using social media to target vehicles without engine immobilizers in a coordinated effort.” They concluded defensively, emphasizing that “All of our vehicles meet or exceed Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.” Kia and Hyundai started offering security kits, but the installation cost thousands. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a statement last February announcing that Hyundai and Kia will now provide theft deterrent software for millions of their vehicles “and will provide it FREE of charge to vehicle owners.” The two car companies had donated “26,000 steering wheel locks since November 2022 to 77 law enforcement agencies in 12 states.” The new $200 million settlement will allegedly cover 9 million cars that lack the basic alarm and safety features their other models have, also covering out-of-pocket costs if your car was stolen. It’s unclear whether this will effectively deter the adamant Kia Boys.

The late sociologist Albert Cohen studied youth gangs in the mid-20th century and found that while they’re often driven by monetary gains, a large percent of their crimes were actually non-monetary. “He observed that they would steal things, get outside the store, laugh about it, and eventually, all the stuff they stole would wind up in a dumpster, meaning they didn’t really want the stuff,” Paul Bellair, professor of sociology and director of Ohio State University’s Criminal Justice Research Center, told me. 

Bellair observes that when a society economically and racially segregates certain populations, this isolation births new social structures outside of the mainstream, fostering subcultures like the Kia Boys. 

“You reject the prevailing norms, and you recreate a system in which you can gain status and where you do have status,” Bellair says. In under-resourced areas of Columbus, like Linden, young Black men are given few opportunities within their neighborhoods. “It’s a rebellion,” Bellair argues, “against their low standing and institutional structures.”

Plagued by the economic and social repercussions of the pandemic, the youth-led movement is not an abnormal product of a cynical present exacerbated by troubling economic conditions paired with an uncertain, sometimes unimaginable, future. 

The end of the Kia Boys — whether arrived leisurely through regulations, lawsuits, a totaling of the entire US supply of Kias and Hyundais, or an unprecedented recall — will only be a temporary pause to a symptom that cannot disappear overnight. As police, politicians, and lawyers scramble to take on a decentralized group of car thieves, the segregated conditions that birthed the movement drive on, untouched.