Man finds his stolen SUV while on Saturday drive

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2022 (1432 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dude, there’s my car.

A Charleswood man out for a drive one Saturday evening in February discovered his own second vehicle, which had been stolen months before, abandoned in Polo Park shopping centre’s lot.

Then, he took it home.

“It’s a crazy story,” D’Arcy Mykietowich told the Free Press. “I found my own vehicle legitimately and saved taxpayers 20 grand (in insurance payout costs).”

Mykietowich, a 56-year-old vice-president of sales and business development for a Canadian software firm, powered up his push-start 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe with a key fob the cold morning of Nov. 30, leaving it to idle in his driveway. When he returned 10 minutes later, his wheels were nowhere to be found.

He quickly reported the SUV stolen to police and Manitoba Public Insurance but found their sleuthing wanting.

“It was kind of an eye-opener in how MPI and the police don’t really do too much in (terms of auto theft) investigation,” Mykietowich said. “In the end, someone’s not really doing their duty.”

He kept an eye out for his Santa Fe.

“Lo and behold, about 8:30 at night on (Feb. 18), I’m driving past Polo Park, and out of the side of my peripheral vision I noticed a vehicle — there’s very few at that time of night in the Polo Park parking lot. I go investigate further and sure enough, there it is,” he said.

“My first response is get home, grab a fob — because I still have both of them — and go take the car and drive it home. And that’s what I did.”

He noted the vehicle only had minor damage to a side mirror and licence plate, and a small crack in the front bumper. It had a nearly full tank of fuel, as it did when it was stolen.

The Sante Fe is waiting for repairs at the dealership while Mykietowich works with the province’s public insurer to get a fair deal.

He’s convinced the vehicle must have been left there for months, because the particular, push-start ignition is supposed to only work with the correct key fob in hand.

Mykietowich said he spoke with the head of the mall’s security team, who he claims assured him guards log licence plates and regularly report them to police.

A Friday morning request for comment about the security team’s protocols sent to the mall’s general and security managers was passed on to the shopping centre’s parent company, which didn’t provide a response by end of day.

Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Dani McKinnon said mall security noted Mykietowich’s Hyundai had been moved “numerous times” to “various locations in the parkade” over the months it was missing.

“A vehicle may not be deemed suspiciously parked as it could belong to an employee, or (people) will sometimes leave a vehicle overnight while being patrons of nearby restaurants and taverns,” she said in an email.

In this case, security didn’t give police a licence plate number for verification.

In general, McKinnon said: “When a vehicle is stolen and reported by the owner to police, the licence plate, description and owner name is put on a Canadian-wide police network. When police run a plate that is suspected of being stolen, it will be flagged as stolen on the network.”

In a case where a vehicle is stolen and immediately reported to police, such as when an idling vehicle is taken from a driveway, police will broadcast the theft to units in the area.

Mykietowich said police weren’t pleased he drove the stolen car home because he contaminated evidence, and ended up closing the report.

McKinnon said it’s a personal decision, but the police service would recommend people to call the WPS first if they happen to find their stolen vehicle.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera