A black 2025 Land Rover worth nearly $200,000 purchased by Shaquille O’Neal and then sent out of state to be customized to his 7-foot-1 frame was reportedly stolen somewhere in Georgia.
The NBA Hall of Famer, according to the L.A. Times, purchased the Land Rover for $180,000 from Effortless Motors in Riverside and was paying extra to have it customized.
Ahmad Abdelrahman, the owner of the auto broker company, told the outlet that his company has customized several vehicles for O’Neal over the last two years and said that while the SUV had been customized locally, it was sent to Georgia for additional fabrication work before making its final stop in Louisiana.
When he learned the Land Rover never arrived in Baton Rouge, Abdelrahman contacted FirstLine Trucking LLC, the company used to ship the vehicle, and was informed that they had “been hacked” and never got Effortless Motor’s shipping order.
He now believes the hackers intercepted the order and took off with Shaq’s custom whip.
The former Laker’s Land Rover appears to the “high-value-vehicle” being sought by the sheriff’s office in Lumpkin County, Georgia, an area approximately 70 miles north of Atlanta.
In a statement to The Times, officials with the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Office said the vehicle was “fraudulently removed from” a fabrication business in Dahlonega and that investigators believe it was taken to the Atlanta Metropolitan area. Sheriff’s officials added that several persons of interest had been identified and that several search warrants were executed as part of the investigation.
“I’ve never had this happen to us before. We do all his vehicles,” Abdelrahman told The Times. “We’ve transported deals for him hundreds of times, and something like this is definitely insane.”
While O’Neal has not spoken about the matter publicly, Abdelrahman and Effortless Motors are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of the Land Rover.