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SOUTH FULTON, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - After an 8-month investigation, the South Fulton police have shut down one of the largest chop shops in metro Atlanta.
Investigators converged on the Roosevelt Highway property Wednesday and seized almost 30 stolen cars and arrested one person.
"We took 41-year-old Karla Hill into custody here on this 3-acre property on Wednesday and charged her with 27 counts of theft by receiving," Fulton County Police Chief Keith Meadows said.
The illegal operation at the corner of Roosevelt Highway and Burton Drive appears to be a legal junkyard from the street, but investigators said the operation had stolen cars on the lot from Henry, Clayton, Coweta, and DeKalb counties as well as the cities of Atlanta and College Park.
"They rip the vehicle identification numbers off the cars, then start selling the engines, transmissions, doors, bumpers and other parts for hundreds of dollars," one undercover investigator told FOX 5. The property had several trailers around filled with lots of stolen part.
Investigators have been combing through all the cars and auto parts on the property for the last three days, trying to determine what is stolen and what is not.
Police said many of the cars were stolen from as far back as 2015. Some were stolen by tow trucks in the middle of the night.