DALLAS — Rudy Villar woke up this morning to an alarm on his phone saying his motorcycle was being stolen.
”When I got down, there was about two or three guys stealing my motorcycle and I started tracking it down right away and it led me to this location,” Villar recounted.
He used a $200 tracking device to find his bike. WFA went with the Dallas Police Department’s auto theft squad when they recovered it.
DPD said fast vehicles are among the most popular for auto thieves, especially Dodge Charges and Challengers.
”These vehicles are being used for street racing and what not,” explained Lt. Julio Gonzalez with the Dallas Police Auto Theft Squad.
Dallas police’s impound lot is full of stolen vehicles they’ve recovered.
They said the No. 1 vehicle being stolen in Dallas this year is the Chevy GMC pickup with model years between 2016-2018. They said it’s because they are easier to steal.
“The bad guys have found a way to swap out the computers to make them turn on,” Gonzalez said.
DPD said this year, they’ve seen a 31% increase in auto thefts. They said part of the reason is there’s a chip shortage for new car computers.
”There is a chip shortage, and that is leading to a very low supply in new cars, and so what that does is, it creates a demand for parts on used vehicles, so we have a significant number of vehicles stolen and taken to be chopped up,” Gonzalez explained.
DPD also said thieves have been switching out VIN numbers. They will buy a salvage vehicle for a few hundred dollars, take the VIN number off and put that on a stolen vehicle so it’s difficult for police to track. They also request a license tag from the DMV using the VIN number off the salvaged vehicle. So, if police pull over the stolen car, it looks like it has legitimate license plates.
Police said half of their auto thefts are due to people leaving their cars running, especially in cold weather. They said it only takes seconds for a thief to drive off on it.
Rudy Villar is one of the lucky ones who got his stolen bike back, but others won’t be so lucky. So, police said take those extra precautions to make sure you don’t become a victim.