Towed Away: Thieves Using Tow Trucks To Steal Cars

 

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(Memphis 5/10/2011) It's a new twist to an old crime, and it's happening in broad daylight, right under the noses of unsuspecting victims and their Mid-South neighbors.

Kathy Lambert couldn't believe what she saw on her security cameras.

"They're not discriminatory," explained Lambert, manager of Broadmoor Apartments in Midtown. "They're just taking them really."

Four times in the last three weeks tow truck drivers showed up outside her Midtown apartment complex ready to take cars.

"They're simply taking them because they can," said Lambert.

She says she didn't call for the wreckers.

Puzzled, Lambert turned to her video surveillance system.

It showed a group of guys scouting out her parking lot then waving in a tow truck in to take away cars the scouts don't own.

"They're very aggressive in what they're doing," said Lambert. "They come in with a team, they don't come alone."

Eric Bonner couldn't believe it when he looked out his window and spotted a tow truck back up to his 2007 Ford Five Hundred.

"Man, my heart's racing like, 'why is this guy, looks like he's fixing to tow my car," recalled Bonner.

Irate, he ran and confronted the driver.

"By the time I got down here, he's screaming and hollering, saying he wasn't fixing to pull my car," Bonner explained.

He doesn't believe the driver's story. It came just days after his neighbor's Jeep was hauled away from the complex.

A security camera picture shows it on the back of a flatbed tow truck.

A police report verifies the SUV was not repossessed.

"People that are doing it need to be where they need to be which is locked up," said Bonner.

Memphis police say it's too soon to tell if the cases are connected.

Lt. James Grigsby from MPD's Auto Theft Unit says it's rare to see tow trucks stealing cars from parking lots.

"There are a few cases we've had where the tow truck drivers unwittingly, unwillingly participated in this because they just didn't simply know," said Grigsby.

WREG On Your Side Investigators tracked down the owner of TCJ's Towing.

He says he was called to the same parking lot last month by a man named Bobby.

"He called me, said he'd done some work at that apartment complex," said tow truck driver Tim Sisco. "They gave him the Jeep and I could buy it for $50."

Suspicious, Sisco called Lambert, the apartment manager.

"I own the company and we've never employed anyone named Bobby," said Lambert.

Sisco says it's not the only time Bobby has called offering a parked car.

"It's not been that same apartment complex, it's been other apartment complexes," said Sisco. We showed the tow company owner the pictures from Lambert's lot.

He easily identified one of the lookouts caught on camera.

"That's Bobby," said Sisco as he looked at the picture.

Then we showed Sisco a mugshot of Bobby White Jr.

White was in jail after he was busted trying to sell a stolen car.

"Same person," said Sisco. He says he's known White for seven years.

There's no doubt in Sisco's mind what's going on.

"He was stealing the car, he had to be," said Sisco. "I probably ain't the only one he called about buying it."

Sisco says he won't take a car without a bill of sale or title.

He says other tow truck drivers, who he wouldn't name, aren't as careful.

Sisco believes they're lured in by the chance to buy a car from a spotter, then turn around and sell it for parts or scrap.

"So no doubt in your mind thieves are using tow truck companies to try and steal cars," asked WREG On Your Side Investigator Scott Noll.

"Tow trucks, yes," said Sisco. "That, or they'll hook a chain to it themselves."

He says most people don't question a tow truck taking a car from a parking lot.

That's why police urge people to be aware of what's happening around them.

If you spot a group of people who don't belong just hanging out or checking out cars, pick up the phone.

"If it doesn't look right, it's probably not right," said Lt. Grigsby. "Call us and we'll come out, let us come out and check out what's going on."

Already, Lambert says one renter is moving out because of concerns about her safety.

Now the apartment manager hopes that by letting people know what's happening, they'll be able to push back before another car gets pulled right out from under its owner.

 

"You're paying for a vehicle that might not be there tomorrow morning just because someone wants $50," said Lambert.

Today, weeks after we started our investigation, Memphis Police arrested and charged Bobby White and another man with using the tow truck to steal the white Jeep from the apartment complex. But that may not be the end of this story. Lambert, the apartment manager says her cameras have caught at least two different sets of scouts working her parking lot scoping out cars. Citywide, more than 900 cars have been reported stolen in Memphis so far this year.