To Catch A Thief

EARLY on the afternoon of March 26, two young men visited Heritage Auto Sales, a specialty dealership in Calgary, Alberta. They asked to test-drive a dark gray 1991 Nissan Skyline GT-R, a performance model made primarily for the Japanese market and rarely seen in North America.

Mr. Ironside imported the dark gray 1991 Nissan Skyline GT-R from Japan for his dealership, Heritage Auto Sales.
The car had been imported from Japan by Shaun Ironside for his dealership. Despite its reserved appearance, the Skyline GT-R is something of a performance icon to car enthusiasts and video gamers; it fit well among the Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes in Mr. Ironside’s inventory.

One of the men had been to the dealership a week earlier for a ride, but he and Mr. Ironside didn’t get far. The car, with an engine modified for extra horsepower, began to act up. When the man returned with a friend for another try, Mr. Ironside was juggling two customers, so he just handed them the keys, explaining that there was only enough gas in the tank for a drive around the block.

But 15 minutes later Mr. Ironside noticed that the Skyline still hadn’t returned — and that the car that the two men had arrived in was gone. A bad feeling swelled in his gut; still, he reasoned, sometimes a buyer will take a car to have it inspected.

“It’s kind of hard to report a vehicle stolen 15 minutes after it’s not come back from a test drive,” he said in a telephone interview last Sunday.

The car never returned. That night, after reporting its disappearance to the police, Mr. Ironside posted a message on Beyond.ca, a Web site for Canadian auto enthusiasts, to spread the word.


10:28 p.m., March 26 Unfortunately I have to post this as one of my first posts my 1991 Skyline GT-R is officially STOLEN.

The forum posting went on to describe the afternoon’s events, repeating information that was included in the police report. He described the driver as a white male in his early 20s, heavy-set, around 5-foot-6, with a distinguishing feature: missing ring and middle fingers on his left hand.

The post included several photos of the missing car and offered a cash reward, though as he typed, Mr. Ironside had little expectation of getting the car back, he said later. But his post set off a cyberworld dragnet — a process definitely not recommended by the police — in a case the arresting officer called “a bizarre file.”

Results came quickly. The next day, James Lynch, a forum moderator, was leaving the Chinook Center mall in Calgary in his BMW M3 when he noticed a Nissan Skyline close behind him.

Having seen the photos of the missing Skyline online earlier in the day, Mr. Lynch immediately recognized the black wheels. He pulled alongside the Skyline at the next light, he said, and gave the driver a “rock out” sign, holding up a hand with pinkie and index finger extended and his other fingers clenched.

“He was dumb enough to do it back to me — and I got a picture right when he did it,” Mr. Lynch said.

When Mr. Ironside checked the Skyline message thread that afternoon, he scrolled through messages from dozens of members. At the bottom of the first page, he reached a surprising post by Mr. Lynch, whom he knew only by his forum handle, JAYMEZ.


4:19 p.m., MARCH 27 I FOUUUNNNDDDDD THEM =) And I have pictures Called the police and chased them, also talked to them.

Five minutes later, the photo, with the driver looking straight into the camera, appeared on the thread. He fit the description in Mr. Ironside’s police report, down to the white and black New York Yankees baseball cap. The photo wasn’t entirely clear, but the driver appeared to be missing two fingers.

Mr. Ironside forwarded the photo to the police, who told him, “The picture is as solid evidence as you’d ever find.”

Online auto forums have helped unravel crimes before. Two years ago, a detective in Los Angeles used the forum on FreshAlloy.com, a Nissan enthusiast site, to track down victims of an elaborate fraud scheme. (That case, too, involved Nissan Skylines.)


The Beyond.ca site had also played a role in earlier cases of what might be called open-source crime solving. A year ago one of its members saw a hit-and-run accident a block in front of him, said Shelton Kwan, who co-founded the site with his cousin Ken Chan in 2002. “He took pictures. And the guy who got hit was another member of ours.”

The victim posted a message about the incident an hour later. The witness with the camera followed up with clear shots of the suspect’s face and license plate — and it made the local news.

“We sent all of that to the cops,” Mr. Kwan said. “And that one was handled basically by the end of the day.”

Two hours after the photo taken by Mr. Lynch was posted, Allan Thomson, known on the forum as Numi, reported a Skyline sighting the previous night and gave directions to the area. The forum exploded with vigilante fervor; members living close by proposed a search.

Four hours later, Mr. Thomson posted again, this time to say that he had sent out a personal message pinpointing the car’s position.


10:23 PM, March 27 FOUND!!! PMED with exact location. Guy drives it like he owns it. Idiot parks outside his house backed in so you cant see his plate.

Exactly 15 minutes later, a forum member added a link to a Google map with directions to the house. Other members scrambled to narrow their Facebook searches for the suspect to the closest high school. At about 11 p.m., a link to the Facebook profile appeared online. The photos seemed to show the same person in the picture taken by Mr. Lynch.

In a little more than 24 hours from the time of Mr. Ironside’s first post on the stolen Skyline, members of the forum had spotted the car and assembled a name, photo, home address and Facebook profile for the person seen behind the wheel of the Skyline.

That night, Mr. Ironside joined a handful of forum members at the address where the car had been parked earlier. After midnight, he posted again.


12:30 a.m, March 28 There was a older body style 94-01 Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup Red in color acting suspicious in the area. If it wasn’t anybody here I would be willing to bet that this guy got a little spooked from all the activity and is just riding around in another vehicle. Anyways, I had to book out and switch up vehicles to a less obvious ride.

Mr. Ironside returned home at 2:30 a.m. and went to sleep.

Punit Patel, known as Dj-Stylz on Beyond.ca, followed the busy thread through the night. He saw that other forum members had searched the area to no avail and decided to leave for work early the next day to swing by the house. He didn’t think about what he would do if the Skyline was there.

When Mr. Patel found the Skyline parked between two pickups, he blocked the driveway with his Acura and asked a friend to post his discovery. Then he called the police and waited.

Mr. Ironside was surprised by the latest development when he checked the forum in the morning. He jumped into his car and arrived at the house at 8:45 a.m. Then he called 911 with his case number. The police arrived in minutes.

Mr. Patel’s next post detailed the events.

11:26 A.M., MARCH 28 The owner arrived and he called the cops because no one came for more then 2 hours. Cops came within 5 minutes after the owner called. I got pictures just give me a little time to upload. Also got a video of the guy getting arrested.

For Mr. Ironside, it was the best possible outcome. His car was dirty but in good shape. He would need to replace the tires and fix a few rock chips.

“Basically this guy thought the car was his, from what I could tell,” he said. “There were receipts in the car for premium car washes. He had all his music collection in there.”

Less than 48 hours after Mr. Ironside’s initial post, photos of the house and videos of the arrest appeared on the thread. The shaky video showed a single police officer escorting the suspect, confirmed by the Calgary police as 18-year-old Jamie Glen Jacobson, to an unmarked police car. He was charged with theft over $5,000. He is free on bail pending a court appearance on April 16.

“This guy has worldwide recognition for being a car thief for the rest of his life,” Mr. Ironside said. “The Internet is not going away.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/automobiles/13STEAL.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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