Apparently, pretending to be a professional basketball player now comes with a very strange bonus package.
Police are looking for a man accused of posing as a pro basketball player and allegedly driving away in a BMW worth about $90K. That is not exactly the kind of car you borrow for a quick trip to the grocery store.
According to the allegations, the man apparently took his fake baller routine to a valet stand.
Savannah, Georgia police say the suspect walked into the Hyatt Regency Savannah around 12:30 AM on Aug. 14, grabbed some belongings from a white Audi, then handed valet workers a ticket for a gray 2026 BMW X5.
According to investigators, he told employees he was a professional basketball player with several cars at the hotel … and apparently sold the story well enough to get the keys and peel out in the BMW.
Problem is … police say the SUV actually belonged to a dealership and was being used as a loaner by a hotel guest. The dealership later tracked it all the way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The whole situation sounds like someone watched too many sports movies and decided to skip the audition.
Pretending to be a professional athlete can certainly get attention, but apparently, there are also people who think the act can unlock luxury cars. That is where things went very wrong.
And the alleged car-hopping didn’t stop there — investigators later learned the white 2025 Audi A5 he’d been seen using was itself reported stolen the day before. Cops found it unlocked in the hotel’s parking garage later that morning.
Police also believe the same guy may be tied to another valet theft at a Savannah hotel earlier in August … when a guest’s Toyota C-HR disappeared after someone allegedly used her retrieval code given to her from the valet service hours before she requested the car.
Savannah police have released surveillance images of the suspect, described as a man in his 20s or 30s, as they try to identify him.
Now police want answers, and the alleged fake baller may have to explain how his basketball career somehow ended up involving a $90K car.
Talk about taking “driving to the rim” way too literally.
