Car Thief Powerless Against the Internet

[phernandez]

Internet Posse Busts 'The Claw,' Canada's Dumbest Car Thief -Wired

Simply because the story entertained me immensely and it shows the power of the Internet to smite fools.

The thief took a tricked-out Nissan Skyline GT-R for a test drive in Calgary and never came back. The owner, Shaun Ironside, 27, called the cops but figured the car was headed for a chop shop, never to be seen again.

Desperate, Ironside posted a thread at Beyond.ca, an automotive discussion forum with 46,000 members. They'd nabbed a hit-and-run driver last year, so if anyone could find the car -- or what might be left of it -- they could stop the thief, Ironside thought.

[phernandez]

A quick timeline and update on this story.

It Takes a Cyber Village to Catch an Auto Thief - NY Times

Less than 48 hours after Mr. Ironside’s initial post, photos of the house and videos of the arrest appeared on the thread. The shaky video showed a single police officer escorting the suspect, confirmed by the Calgary police as 18-year-old Jamie Glen Jacobson, to an unmarked police car. He was charged with theft over $5,000. He is free on bail pending a court appearance on April 16.