Brazen thief targets cars at Rhawn Automotive in Philadelphia

Alma L. Figueroa
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — A Philadelphia auto shop is hoping surveillance video will help police identify a brazen suspect who has been breaking into several vehicles parked in their lot.

“He’s actually really cool, calm, collected,” said Steven Igdalov about the man who has been stalking his autobody shop.

He says a man seen on surveillance has been scoping out and targeting the vehicles at his family’s autobody shop, Rhawn Automotive, and he never leaves empty-handed.

“The second customer was in the construction field and he had a lot of his tools stolen. We also had another car that a $700 Google Pioneer radio taken out of that we had to replace,” said Igdalov.

The thief was caught on their 12 on-premises surveillance cameras twice. In the early morning hours of November 7 and again on the 11th. The suspect was driving two different vehicles, but wearing the exact same outfit.

Igdalov counted about a dozen cars on his lot which were tampered with.

“Some of the cars were left open, doors were open, it was the same gentleman that came here and also went through different vehicles,” said Igdalov.

The whole thing leaves him sleepless.

“It’s very frustrating especially that I don’t get a good night of sleep knowing any day somebody’s going to come and start taking stuff out of the cars we have here,” said Igdalov.

So he took to Facebook to share his story with close up photos of the culprit, offering up a $500 reward.

That’s when he got a community response.

“We’ve been getting a lot of responses. We’ve been getting a lot of cars broken into all over our neighborhood. We have a lot of apartment complexes by us. It seems like he’s parking the car here and walking into the area and bringing the stuff back to his car,” said Igdalov.

Philadephia police have taken over this investigation with the help of the body shop’s surveillance.

“He has to stop. We have very good video, license plate photos, makes and models of his cars. He’s going to get caught no matter what,” said Igdalov.

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