The crimes typically occur when employees carpool to job sites and leave their vehicles unlocked for convenience throughout the workday.

"If they have multiple occupants, it's more so convenient to keep the car or the truck unlocked so that throughout the shift you can go back and forth to grab a bite to eat, snack, take a break," Lt. Marvin Marsh said.

Thieves are testing door handles and stealing contents from unlocked vehicles.

"Oddly enough, we have not seen incidents involving our work sites where they're actually breaking the car window or damaging the car. All of our incidents it's a simple tug on the door handle," Marsh said.

Richmond Police Department reported nine of these incidents between January and July 2024. So far this year, detectives have investigated more than 40 ins

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