By Erin Ailworth 

Chicago police on Thursday were searching for dozens of missing luxury cars that were fraudulently rented via the mobile app used by Share Now, a car-sharing service formerly known as Car2Go.

The company temporarily suspended its service in Chicago Wednesday as police began tracking down the missing cars.

"Out of an abundance of caution and safety for our members we are temporarily pausing our service in Chicago," Share Now spokeswoman Kendell Kelton said via email Wednesday. "This is an instance of fraud (theft), isolated to Chicago."

She said no personal or confidential information had been compromised.

Chicago police said over a dozen people of interest were being questioned about the incident, which they were alerted to by the car rental company. While they had recovered numerous vehicles as of Wednesday afternoon, 100 remained unaccounted for, including about 50 Mercedes-Benz that were believed to still be in the Chicagoland area.

Share Now was unveiled in February, about a year after German automakers BMW Group and Daimler AG announced they would form a joint venture with their respective car sharing services, DriveNow and Car2Go. Share Now is one of five mobility services under that joint venture. It operates a fleet of more than 20,000 BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Smart, and Mini vehicles in 30 cities across Europe and North America.

Write to Erin Ailworth at Erin.Ailworth@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 18, 2019 10:18 ET (14:18 GMT)