Don’t fall for the “flat tire” scam, an increasingly common form of theft

Mérida, Yucatán, (March 17, 2021).- This tactic was initially detected last year in Mérida when a group of Colombian thieves tried to pull the trick on someone in the Francisco de Montejo subdivision, but when the victim realized what was happening, immediately called the Police, and the South Americans were imprisoned.

In the center of the country, the authorities have issued an alert to prevent possible robberies perpetrated by criminals using the “flat tire” technique, in which they damage the tire of a vehicle, and when the owner stops the car to fix the flat tire, they approach as if they want to “help” the driver, but instead they steal what they can from inside the car.

A recent case very similar occurred in Mexico City, where the victim explained to the authorities that after leaving a hospital he noticed that he had a flat tire, so he went to a tire service place to fix it, realizing that he was being followed by a Mercedes Benz vehicle.

When he stopped at the place to repair the tire, he left the vehicle open, and one of the men in the other car opened the door, took the briefcase he was carrying in the passenger seat, and then ran, but as he began to chase him, the thief threw away the briefcase and got into the Mercedes that was previously following them, that means, the assault was planned. However, the victim asked for police help, the authorities went after the subjects and managed to detain them.

For this reason, an alert was issued in the center of the country, as this modus operandi has become very common, and as we already mentioned, last year a very similar robbery attempt was detected in Yucatán.

The difference was that the complainant, upon seeing a flat tire, was “helped” by the Colombians who came from Guanajuato to do their theft.

The thieves allegedly punctured the tire and began to follow their victim, who stopped at a bank in Francisco de Montejo, withdrew a large sum of money, and it was later that he realized the problem with the tire.

That was the plan of the Colombians, who approach the victim to offer her “help”, and when she was neglected they stole the briefcase with the money withdrawn from the bank.

The affected person called 911 gave the data of the car used by the criminals, so they were located and finally arrested. One of them even had an arrest warrant in force in the state of Jalisco.

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