MIAMI – Surveillance video caught two thieves in the act of stealing a dark blue Mercedes-Benz SUV.
The car's owners also caught the suspects in action, after receiving alerts on a cellphone app.
“Honestly, the first reaction was, like, to not let them leave with my car,” victim Sabrina Peixoto told Local 10 News.
Peixoto said she was in bed when she received an alert on her cellphone that she had left the headlights on in her SUV.
Her boyfriend went outside to shut them off.
What the couple didn’t know at the time was that the thieves were hiding outside their home, waiting for the opportunity to steal the vehicle.
“He manually shut off the lights, locked the car, came inside and was like, ‘Hey, I don’t know what’s up with your car. Like, the lights won’t shut off,’” Peixoto explained.
Seconds later, the SUV was pulling out of the driveway.
“Within, like, 30 seconds we heard the engine start and then I’m looking at the camera and I see the car lights turn on and two people in my car, and I was like, ‘There’s someone in my car,’” Peixoto said.
The crooks slammed into neighboring cars, severely damaging Peixoto’s Mercedes, before driving off.
She quickly called police, and then her father.
“He told me to go onto my app on my phone and shut off my engine, and so that’s what I did,” she said.
That forced the crooks to ditch the vehicle just a block away, near Southwest 15th Avenue and Southwest Ninth Street in Miami.
Anyone with information on the theft or that may recognize the thieves is urged to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.