The Following Letter was shared with us by the folks at StolenCarReports (with permission from the author).
Some of you have already heard the story, but I wanted to share this unbelievable story with all of you who I sent the original notice to back in April. 2003. The following is the whole long sorted story from June 1 2003
Bottom line, I recovered the Van in La Crecenta, and sold it on the spot where it was recovered from.
Information on Recovery and Sale of 1987 Toyota Van 4XVP649.
Received a phone call from a man with an Arabic or Pharisee accent. He was interested in buying the van. The time was approximately 1600 on Sunday 1 June 2003. After asking him a few leading questions, I told him it had been stolen, and missing from Camarillo since April 8th.
He gave me the location of the van in Montrose (near La Crecenta).
Told me his name was G**i, and he was very happy that he assisted me in recovering the stolen van. He still wanted to buy the Van, and wanted to know if I would give him a good price for recovering the vehicle, which I responded in the affirmative!
On that initial call he also gave me two phone numbers for the LASD. He told me his girlfriend had the numbers handy, I must have copied down thefirst number incorrectly. I got through to the LASD on one of them.
LASD sent Deputy Brant and Deputy Lutz to the location. It was on Park Ave, North of Verdugo on the East side of the Street. The called me from the location. LASD recorded It as 3800 Park Street.
I asked them not to tow it, since it was not covered under insurance. He agreed it would cost me to recover is, but warned me they could not stay, and I would have to risk it not being there when I got there. I told them I would be down in about an hour and would call Dispatch when I got there.
I didn¹t depart till about 1620. I got there at about 1720. G**i was waiting for me when I got there, in fact he called me on the cell phone, and guided me in the last 1/2 mile.
The van appeared to have been there for quite some time. There were pine needles under the tires and dry grass from a lawn mower all over the passenger side.
I called the LASD dispatch to inform them that I had arrive at the location. The told me they would have the Deputies meet me there, which they did in just a few minutes. They started the process of figuring out what paperwork they needed to file to release the vehicle directly to me on the spot. Normally it is towed. Basically I called them, they didn¹t
really recover it, G**i did!
The Deputies to go to another call. I took the time to inspect the vehicle, add some Fuel and get the van started. It was this point that I noticed interior damage to the carpet due to the spare battery being dumped over. Sulfuric Acid had dripped out on to the concrete at the curb. I opened up the back door, and noticed the acid migrated all the way back to
the passenger side of the back door since it was parked on a hill. Therewas a cigarette ash on the console and a Marbro butt on th e floor. I foundmy Garage Door Opener (which requires a combination to be entered) left in the glove box. Everything I recall leaving in the van was still there, with the exception of two things. 1. The package with the Owners Manual, registration, insurance etc was taken, and 2. The spare battery box that was on the floor on top of the main battery box behind the driver. The box had been emptied and only the box, top and strap were taken. A clip board that I had signs on and the signs torn from the driver and passenger
windows were on the front passenger seat floor, along with a small Christian cross I had hanging from the rear view mirror. I guess the thief wasn¹t Christian.
At some point G**i and his male friend drove off in a silver BMW. He said they would be back. They returned after Deputies returned the second time while we were there. That would have been their third time on seen.
After the Deputies returned, they entered the information on the in car terminal, and waited for it to come back cleared. They gave me a copy of the "Notice of Stored Vehicle" CHP 180.
They also helped me scrape the DOD Base Sticker from the window. Deputy Lutz did tell us that they had done some investigation and spoke to neighbors the first time they were there.
After the Deputies left, G**i had his friend drive the Van for a test drive. He rode in the back seat while I rode in the passenger side. They did ask me all sorts of questions, which gave me the feeling they were indeed just looking to buy a van. I had to remind them it w as missing for two months.
Several other observations about G**i and the transaction which lead to some suspicion:
1. While he w as writing out the check, he accidentally wrote the check for 10x less by accident. He voided it and started over.
2. His DL address did not match the address on the check.
3. He did not give me a very good chance to inspect his DL.
4. He showed Me and My wife Elaine a bank ATM receipt and pointed out the time being about 5pm and the balance over 2000 to indicate that he had money in the bank to cover the check. He did have his thumb covering a portion of the receipt and did not hand me the receipt.
5. While getting his license out his friend made a comment that he should show us his pilots license. Huh?
6. They kept talking to each other in their own language. I am not sure what that was.
On the other hands.
7. G**i was wearing a gold crucifix with some other charms. One of the other charms was "DAD"
When is was all over, My suspicion was for nothing. The transaction turned out great for both us. A crucifix G**i was wearing was the sign that everything was just fine. His Check was good, We never did find out who took the Van from, but the Angels were working overtime.
I just mailed off a thank you package to G**i with some oil filters and a computer code scanner I had used for the van. (Basically just an expensive book and a piece of jumper wire)
Yes amazing but true.... So amazing that the people at
www.stolencarreports.com/ want to publish this story on another web site. www.Auto-Theft.info/. If you seen them, check it out.
David A. Tersigni
Some of you have already heard the story, but I wanted to share this unbelievable story with all of you who I sent the original notice to back in April. 2003. The following is the whole long sorted story from June 1 2003
Bottom line, I recovered the Van in La Crecenta, and sold it on the spot where it was recovered from.
Information on Recovery and Sale of 1987 Toyota Van 4XVP649.
Received a phone call from a man with an Arabic or Pharisee accent. He was interested in buying the van. The time was approximately 1600 on Sunday 1 June 2003. After asking him a few leading questions, I told him it had been stolen, and missing from Camarillo since April 8th.
He gave me the location of the van in Montrose (near La Crecenta).
Told me his name was G**i, and he was very happy that he assisted me in recovering the stolen van. He still wanted to buy the Van, and wanted to know if I would give him a good price for recovering the vehicle, which I responded in the affirmative!
On that initial call he also gave me two phone numbers for the LASD. He told me his girlfriend had the numbers handy, I must have copied down thefirst number incorrectly. I got through to the LASD on one of them.
LASD sent Deputy Brant and Deputy Lutz to the location. It was on Park Ave, North of Verdugo on the East side of the Street. The called me from the location. LASD recorded It as 3800 Park Street.
I asked them not to tow it, since it was not covered under insurance. He agreed it would cost me to recover is, but warned me they could not stay, and I would have to risk it not being there when I got there. I told them I would be down in about an hour and would call Dispatch when I got there.
I didn¹t depart till about 1620. I got there at about 1720. G**i was waiting for me when I got there, in fact he called me on the cell phone, and guided me in the last 1/2 mile.
The van appeared to have been there for quite some time. There were pine needles under the tires and dry grass from a lawn mower all over the passenger side.
I called the LASD dispatch to inform them that I had arrive at the location. The told me they would have the Deputies meet me there, which they did in just a few minutes. They started the process of figuring out what paperwork they needed to file to release the vehicle directly to me on the spot. Normally it is towed. Basically I called them, they didn¹t
really recover it, G**i did!
The Deputies to go to another call. I took the time to inspect the vehicle, add some Fuel and get the van started. It was this point that I noticed interior damage to the carpet due to the spare battery being dumped over. Sulfuric Acid had dripped out on to the concrete at the curb. I opened up the back door, and noticed the acid migrated all the way back to
the passenger side of the back door since it was parked on a hill. Therewas a cigarette ash on the console and a Marbro butt on th e floor. I foundmy Garage Door Opener (which requires a combination to be entered) left in the glove box. Everything I recall leaving in the van was still there, with the exception of two things. 1. The package with the Owners Manual, registration, insurance etc was taken, and 2. The spare battery box that was on the floor on top of the main battery box behind the driver. The box had been emptied and only the box, top and strap were taken. A clip board that I had signs on and the signs torn from the driver and passenger
windows were on the front passenger seat floor, along with a small Christian cross I had hanging from the rear view mirror. I guess the thief wasn¹t Christian.
At some point G**i and his male friend drove off in a silver BMW. He said they would be back. They returned after Deputies returned the second time while we were there. That would have been their third time on seen.
After the Deputies returned, they entered the information on the in car terminal, and waited for it to come back cleared. They gave me a copy of the "Notice of Stored Vehicle" CHP 180.
They also helped me scrape the DOD Base Sticker from the window. Deputy Lutz did tell us that they had done some investigation and spoke to neighbors the first time they were there.
After the Deputies left, G**i had his friend drive the Van for a test drive. He rode in the back seat while I rode in the passenger side. They did ask me all sorts of questions, which gave me the feeling they were indeed just looking to buy a van. I had to remind them it w as missing for two months.
Several other observations about G**i and the transaction which lead to some suspicion:
1. While he w as writing out the check, he accidentally wrote the check for 10x less by accident. He voided it and started over.
2. His DL address did not match the address on the check.
3. He did not give me a very good chance to inspect his DL.
4. He showed Me and My wife Elaine a bank ATM receipt and pointed out the time being about 5pm and the balance over 2000 to indicate that he had money in the bank to cover the check. He did have his thumb covering a portion of the receipt and did not hand me the receipt.
5. While getting his license out his friend made a comment that he should show us his pilots license. Huh?
6. They kept talking to each other in their own language. I am not sure what that was.
On the other hands.
7. G**i was wearing a gold crucifix with some other charms. One of the other charms was "DAD"
When is was all over, My suspicion was for nothing. The transaction turned out great for both us. A crucifix G**i was wearing was the sign that everything was just fine. His Check was good, We never did find out who took the Van from, but the Angels were working overtime.
I just mailed off a thank you package to G**i with some oil filters and a computer code scanner I had used for the van. (Basically just an expensive book and a piece of jumper wire)
Yes amazing but true.... So amazing that the people at
www.stolencarreports.com/ want to publish this story on another web site. www.Auto-Theft.info/. If you seen them, check it out.
David A. Tersigni
