You leave your keys inside a multi-million-dollar hypercar. You assume your local factory campus is safe. Then, a stranger walks up, opens the door, and casually drives away with your Bugatti Chiron.
That sounds like the plot of a low-budget action movie, but it actually happened to Mate Rimac, the CEO of Bugatti-Rimac. What followed was a cross-border telemetry chase involving a Porsche 911, real-time tracking, and an oddly chill suspect who just wanted to see Germany.
Let's look past the viral headlines and break down how a multi-country security breach turned into one of the strangest automotive stories of the year.
The Million Dollar Mistake at the Rimac Campus
The incident started at the Rimac factory campus in Croatia. Rimac has openly admitted that he got complacent. Because crime rates locally are exceptionally low, he routinely left cars unlocked with the keys sitting right inside. It is a habit born of hyper-local trust, but it is a massive gamble when you build vehicles worth upwards of three million dollars.
Security footage later showed a man in his mid-30s strolling around the facility. The suspect claimed he had walked onto the campus looking for a job. Instead of finding an HR representative, he found a Chiron with the ignition key waiting for him. He slid into the driver's seat, started the quad-turbo W16 engine, and drove off the lot in broad daylight.
Staff members initially thought a colleague was just taking the car out for standard testing or moving it between bays. By the time anyone realized the vehicle was genuinely missing, the thief had a comfortable head start.
Firing Up a Porsche 911 for a Real Time Hunt
Most executives would sit in an office, call the authorities, and wait for insurance updates. Rimac decided to take matters into his own hands.
He didn't just wait on police reports because modern hypercars are connected machines. Using the Chiron's advanced telemetry system, Rimac's team pulled live tracking data. They could see exact coordinates, real-time speed metrics, and the remaining fuel level.
Realizing the car was hurtling north toward the Slovenian border, Rimac grabbed a Porsche 911 Turbo S with a full tank of gas and hit the road himself. He chased the telemetry data across borders while coordinating with law enforcement.
The thief had a solid plan on paper, but poor execution. Driving a fuel-thirsty Bugatti at high speeds means fuel stops are frequent. The suspect stopped to refuel and reportedly left without paying, which burned precious time and narrowed the gap between him and the CEO.
Crossing Borders and Facing Austrian Police
The chase did not end with a dramatic Hollywood pit maneuver on a winding mountain pass. Instead, technology and international police cooperation sealed the outcome.
The suspect crossed out of Slovenia and entered Austria. Austrian authorities were already tracking the telemetry feed closely. An intercepting police unit caught up with the car and arrested the driver without incident.
When Rimac arrived at the police station to verify ownership of the Chiron, he actually spoke with the perpetrator. The conversation was bizarrely casual. The suspect explained that he had no grand black-market syndicate or international buyers lined up. He simply panicked after taking the car and decided to keep driving all the way to Germany for reasons he couldn't quite explain.
Oddly enough, Rimac later remarked that he felt a strange sense of sympathy for the guy and even joked about offering him a ride back home. State prosecutors in Graz and Croatian police forces didn't share the comedic sentiment, moving forward with criminal charges regardless of the CEO's leniency.
The Aftermath and Lessons Learned
The damage to the multi-million-dollar hypercar was thankfully minimal. The high-speed getaway left the front carbon-fiber splitter with a few scuffs, but the mechanical heart of the machine remained untouched. Rimac brushed off the repair costs on social media, noting that fixing a front spoiler is minor when you run a hypercar manufacturing empire.
However, the operational security policy at the Rimac campus changed permanently. Rimac confirmed that his days of leaving keys inside unlocked cars are entirely over. Even if you live in the safest region on earth, advertising an open invitation to a multi-million-dollar garage is a risk no business owner should take twice.
Lock your doors, secure your keys, and stop testing your luck against opportunistic strangers, no matter how safe your neighborhood feels.
