Criminal in Venice stealing Tesla for reward (9)
I believe the answer is:
incentive
'for reward' is the definition.
(I have seen 'Motivational reward ' mean 'incentive' so perhaps 'reward' could also mean 'incentive')
'criminal in venice stealing tesla' is the wordplay.
'criminal' is an anagram indicator.
'stealing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'tesla' becomes 'T' (scientific unit).
'in'+'venice'='invenice'
'invenice' anagrammed gives 'incenive'.
'incenive' placed around 't' is 'INCENTIVE'.
(Other definitions for incentive that I've seen before include "Inducement" , "Payment to improve" , "carrot" , "Motivational reward" , "A motivation" .)