YouTuber Pretends to Steal a Streamer’s Car Using a Homemade Device. Then Real Thieves Drive Away With It Hours LaterA Mark Rober video opens with a mystery: Twitch streamer JasonTheWeen watching his giveaway car disappear from his own driveway during a live broadcast on April 9, 2026, and immediately getting accused of faking it. The accusation was wrong, but the explanation was weirder than anyone guessed.The vehicle in question was a 2026 Hyundai Sonata straight off the lot, and JasonTheWeen had planned to hand it over to a lucky viewer as a giveaway prize. Rober noticed the stream, noticed where Jason left the keys, and decided to guarantee himself a win using a relay attack device – the same kind of two-person electronic tool used to steal roughly half a million cars a year in America, or one every 48 seconds.The concept is straightforward even if the hardware isn't: one person stands near the house and captures the faint signal constantly broadcast by the key fob inside, then relays it wirelessly to a second device next to the car, which the car interprets as the key being right there. No forced entry, no alarm, no trace.AdvertisementAdvertisementRober's first acquisition of such a device came through a dark web supplier going by the name Dimitri, at a price of $12,000 paid in Bitcoin – but a CT scan of the unit revealed that its essential internals could be reproduced using parts stripped from an old-fashioned video baby monitor, bringing the actual component cost down to roughly $100. The initial $12,000 prototype required seven minutes to successfully relay the key signal and start the vehicle. After rebuilding the device, the entire process – from moving in on the target to pulling away – was completed in roughly ten seconds.The Part Where Real Thieves Show UpAfter "winning" Jason's Sonata and watching the streamer's live meltdown in real time, Rober felt guilty enough to return the car – but not before fitting it with 12 GPS trackers and hidden cameras and parking it in the Los Angeles neighborhood with the highest auto theft rate in the city. He wanted to see what actually happens to stolen cars.He didn't have to wait long. At 2:15 a.m., teenagers stole it. According to data shown in Rober's video, three out of four vehicle thefts are carried out by young offenders seeking either a joyride or the cover of a stolen license plate to commit further crimes. The other 25% is organized crime, where vehicles get shipped overseas in containers or stripped at chop shops within an hour. This car's thief spent the night trying unsuccessfully to convince friends to join him, filmed himself nearly hitting a cat, then parked the Sonata at home and discovered – too late – that it was full of cameras. Authorities eventually impounded the vehicle due to an unpaid parking violation, a development that unfolded over the five days the GPS trackers had been monitoring its location. Of the 37 laws broken during the joyride, per Rober's count, a meter maid got him.Rober confessed the truth to Jason during filming, revealing the Sonata had been taken, and stepped in with a 2026 Rivian as the new prize, with ten selected finalists scheduled to face off during a live-streamed competition on June 28. Jason's response: "Hey, this makes up for all of it."AdvertisementAdvertisementThere's actual consumer advice buried in all of this. Because relay attacks depend on intercepting the signal emitted by your key fob, keeping keys away from your front door is essential – as is storing them in a metal tin or wrapped in aluminum foil, which creates what's known as a Faraday cage and blocks the signal entirely. A penny's worth of foil is enough. Protective pouches designed to block key fob signals can be found online at roughly $10, although Rober found that two of the products he put to the test failed to work at all. According to the Association of British Insurers, relay attacks now account for 70% of all vehicle thefts in the UK, and Germany's ADAC testing found that roughly 85% of keyless-entry vehicles across more than 800 models can be opened with cheap signal-extension equipment.The foil is cheaper than the Rivian.