Owning or Operating a Chop Shop

Vehicle Code § 10801 makes it a crime for any person who knowingly and intentionally owns or operates a chop shop.

Under Vehicle Code § 250, a “chop shop” is any building, lot, or other premises where any person has been engaged in altering, destroying, disassembling, dismantling, reassembling, or storing any motor vehicle or motor vehicle part known to be illegally obtained by theft, fraud, or conspiracy to defraud, in order to do either of the following:

• Alter, counterfeit, deface, destroy, disguise, falsify, forge, obliterate, or remove the identity, including the vehicle identification number, of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle part, in order to misrepresent the identity of the motor vehicle or motor vehicle part, or to prevent the identification of the motor vehicle or motor vehicle part.
  
  
• Sell or dispose of the motor vehicle or motor vehicle part.