Dallas – Dallas police are searching for a suspect in what investigators say is a growing trend of car thefts.
Police told the car’s owner, Steven Binco, that his car may have been targeted due to an increase in vehicle thefts involving Kia and Hyundai vehicles across the country, fuelled by social media trends.
Last Friday, Binco was walking her dog around the Northstar Apartments on Forest Lane when she noticed something was wrong.
“I looked across the car park and saw something was missing and it was my car!” he said.
At first, Binco thought his Kia had been towed away, but when he checked his security camera, he saw two people dressed in black clothing approach his car and then drive off a few minutes later.
“It’s a really uncomfortable feeling,” he said.
Binco called Dallas police and filed a report, and police returned the next day for a call about another stolen Kia.
“I was at home and the police came knocking on the door and said, ‘We see you have a camera. Can we take a look?’ I looked out the window and there were a bunch of officers there and they told me there’d been another accident,” he said.
Binco played back the security camera footage and saw a white Kia Soul enter the parking lot. The driver jumped out of the moving vehicle and fled. When police arrived, the car crashed into another vehicle.
Dallas police said the Kia had been reported stolen and officers pursued it to an apartment complex.
They are still looking for a drive.
“We feel like having two incidents back to back in the same car park really makes the area unsafe,” Vinco said.
Investigators told Vinco that because his vehicle was a Kia, he may have been targeted because there was a trend on social media describing how to steal that particular Kia.
“When you see it, it makes you think about how you would feel if someone broke into your car, and it’s very hard to comprehend,” Vinco said.
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Binco doesn’t believe his car will ever be found, but he wants to share his experience to help prevent the same thing from happening to others.
“I don’t believe that someone has taken away my freedom, my safety and my peace of mind. They didn’t just take my car,” he said.
A rise in vehicle thefts involving Kia and Hyundai has led the car companies to offer free software updates and steering wheel locks to customers.
Dallas police have not released a suspect profile in either case.
Anyone with information about the auto theft is asked to contact Dallas Police.
