I think you misread? That sentence isn’t describing the criminals, it’s describing the victims.

Wealthy people (mostly) didn’t own the Kias and Hyundais that were stolen en masse during the early 2020’s for instance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge

Targeting a wealthy person for property crime is a high-risk, high-reward scenario, but there is still the risk of enforcement. A poor person is a much softer target and law enforcement will almost certainly tell them there’s no hope of being made whole.