A New York City woman was stunned to find her brand new car stripped entirely of its tires and rims in Brooklyn, and even more shocked when she saw on surveillance video how quickly and efficiently two thieves managed to pry them off as other cars drove past.
The video taken on a Williamsburg block captures the entire theft early Monday morning. The thieves spot the Mercedes Benz, use a jack to hoist the car off the ground and rest the vehicle on garbage. Then they go for the tires, removing lug nuts one by one and rolling the tires away.
Once the job is complete, the thieves remove the jack and the car smashes back onto the ground. The pair drives away.
It all happened as cars and even a sanitation truck pass by.
"They're so nonchalant about it," said car owner Nicole Peluso. "He carries a huge jack across the street like it was premeditated. They knew what they were coming from. It's disgusting."
Peluso said she'd saved up for years to buy the car, and the second car payment was only due Wednesday. There was less than 2,000 miles on it.
"It's sitting tireless in an auto body shop somewhere," she said. "Two thousand dollars for each tire and rim. The part that it leaned on, the clay pot -- it broke and went through the rocker, the door of my car."
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Peluso said when she reported the theft to police, she was told no one had called 911 to report a burglary in progress.
She's now hoping the video, shared first with NBC 4 New York, will help lead to the suspects.
"I want them to be caught. I don't want them to be able to do this again, and I want them to pay for what they did to me," she said.
