My car was stolen and ransomed

Hello everyone. My name is Ethan and this is hard for me to do. I hate asking for help, but in this case, my family needs it.

I bought a cheap car for transportation last year and spent the whole year working on it to get it roadworthy. Multiple trips to the junkyards to find parts, hours wrenching and thousands of dollars trying to restore this old car.

On February 6th at 4:47am my car was stolen from in front of my apartment. I didn’t notice it was gone till I woke up that morning. I immediately called the non-emergency line to the police and filed a report.

After some digging and contributions from neighbors in my neighborhood, I was able to compile a plethora of video evidence showing my car getting stolen and the assailants on tape. Multiple people from different residences and business had multiple angles of this happening.

I’ve tried calling SDPD multiple times and left several voicemails over the following 4 days after the incident. I have not received any call back or correspondence with the police on either side of the border. No one at SDPD called me back ever. I have the man’s FB profile, IG profile and information on the dealership in TJ selling stolen American cars.

3 days after my car was stolen, I get a message on Instagram about my car. The person sends me photos of my car and asks me for 1000 bucks to get it back. The guys says it doesn’t have wheels left and he wants me to come to Mexico alone and pick it up. It felt like another scam. Clearly I don’t have the extra money laying around to get the car back, and as a father with a new-born, it’s not worth the risk to go to a foreign country and try to strong arm the locals to give me the car back. I tried contacting the police again multiple times to get some help with catching the thieves. Some friends cross referenced the IG account that messaged me and traced this profile to a man who’s connected to a dealership in Tijuana. The helper car caught on video helping the man steal my car was posted for sale from this dealership the next day.

After I told the man I didn’t have the money to give them for my car back, the guy started sending me videos of them tearing the inside of my car apart, like some sort of messed up hostage video. It was gut-wrenching.

The thing that is so frustrating, not necessarily the money, but the time I invested in this project, and I could even get SDPD to call me back at all.

To add to this already frustrating situation, I have a newborn son and my wife’s car’s transmission is slipping.

With your help, If I’m able to run a successful campaign on GoFundMe, the money will be used to find a cheap, reliable, and safe car for my wife and baby boy as we plan to donate or fix and sell the car she currently has. My work truck doesn’t have space for a baby seat and my wife’s car is untrustworthy to be driven outside the neighborhood or down the street to the grocery store.

I truly appreciate you taking the time to read about my predicament. Thank you for your kind consideration.