Not all heroes wear a cape.
Car theft is a problem in many parts of North America and the rest of the world. And while plenty of people complain about it when their own ride is swiped, one man in Portland, Oregon has decided to wage a war against the trend. In his spare time, auto repair shop owner Nick Haas goes looking for vehicles that have been stolen with the hopes of reuniting them with their owners.
Find out how much Ontario is planning to spend to fight car theft here.
A year ago, Haas was profiled by local news station KGW (we’ve included the video for your viewing pleasure). At that point he had recovered 54 stolen cars. The man has founded Guardians Theft Recovery & Investigation, which describes itself as “a group of individuals dedicated to helping the greater Portland community catch car thieves, recover stolen property, social media distributions of notices relating to theft and neighborhood watch.”
In other words, Haas isn’t just trying to wage this war on car theft and other crimes by himself. Instead, he’s getting other people organized and that’s great. Even better, this organization isn’t looking to get people to cough up money for help.
Since he works in Portland, Haas isn’t exactly recovering a bunch of Dodge Hellcats and C8 Corvettes. Instead, he’s scooping up a lot of Subaru and Volvo wagons with broken windows and jacked-up steering columns. It’s not much, but it’s honest work, as a wise man once said.
Like a lot of people, Haas uses social media to alert others about cars he’s recovered as well as to know what vehicles to look for when he’s out and about. After all, to fight community crime, communities have to come together.
On April 5, Guardians Theft Recovery & Investigation said Haas was nominated for Best of Portland by Willamette Weekly.
Every time we post about stolen cars on social media, a wave of accounts we strongly suspect are simply bots will post comments about contacting some “recovery specialist” on Instagram. We’ve seen some people post about falling for that scam, which oftentimes means paying money up front to someone who supposedly will get your stolen ride back. But Haas is doing this for free and that in our book makes him a hero.
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