A daring thief in Texas briskly made off with around $200,000 worth of property from a public pay-to-park parking lot in under 20 seconds.
After a long day of leisure at the beach with his family, Adam Lewis said he was unable to park his Ford F-250 Limited with an 18-foot flatbed trailer carrying his 2021 Polaris NorthStar Edition in his apartment building’s parking garage due to its size, NBCDFW reported.
Lewis decided to reserve two spots at a pay-to-park public parking lot in downtown Dallas on Sept. 4 near where he was planning on taking the buggy in for maintenance the following day.
To the family man’s surprise, the two spaces were empty the next morning.
“There was no truck and no buggy,” Lewis told the outlet.
“I was like: Ok, I called my guy [who manages the parking lot] and was like, was this towed by accident?”
After contacting the lots manager of the lot, he was told the security guard on shift that night said a tow truck did come “into the lot.”
Reviewing the lot’s security, the manager watched the tow truck nab Lewis’s property in seconds.
“[The thief] backed up to my truck with my trailer and Polaris, and he was out,” Lewis shared.
The tow truck — possibly a blue Dodge single-cab pickup — pulled off the heist in 19 seconds, according to the outlet.
Lewis was given additional security footage from a nearby Bank of America that had a better view of the tow truck plates so he could “turn that information over to the police.”
Filing an insurance claim and reporting the theft to The Dallas Police Department, it was discovered that the truck’s TDLR number (Texas Department of Licensing and Registrations) “was fake.”
Law enforcement ended up finding the “shell” of Lewis’ truck last Friday.
His Ford was completely stripped and had “no bed, no seats, no steering wheel, no engine,” and there was no sign of his buggy.
The heartless crooks even made off with his three-year-old daughter’s car seat, toys, and puzzles.
Lewis says after watching the video of the heist, he’s impressed with the carjacker’s quickness.
“To take an F250, attached to an 18-foot trailer that has a 4-door buggy, thousands and thousands of pounds on it, that’s impressive,” he told the outlet.
The father asks if anyone has information on who pulled off the robbery to report it to law enforcement — but appears not to be harboring any harsh feelings toward the car thief.
“I would probably find a position for you in my industry for you to utilize these passionate skills that you have acquired. Let’s turn this around, let’s make our own money so you don’t have to steal.”
Though the stolen property is valued at around $200,000, Lewis understands it’s not the police’s top priority to find the brazen car thief.
“You feel just kind of pushed over in the mud, but at the end of the day, you have to get over it. It’s just stuff,” Lewis said.
