From Slashdot’s crowdsourcing-justince department comes the heartwarming tale of a stolen car, the idiots who stole it, and a posse of car enthusiast-slash-forum-posters turned detectives who tracked the orchestrator of the act down and got him arrested.

The car did not come back. As Mr. Ironside put it, it went for a “permanent test drive.” He quickly posted a plea for help at Beyond.ca, where in a matter of days, a forum member was able to capture a picture of the suspect, inside the car, displaying the hand disfigurement that unquestionably identified him.

Soon after, another member spotted the suspect driving the car and tailed him, locating the moron’s home. The picture mentioned earlier was used to track down his Facebook page. Forum members eventually drove to the suspect’s home, blockaded the road with their vehicles. The owner of the car joined them and called the police, who responded in minutes. Someone had the presence of mind to video-tape the arrest:



”…you want to go on a test drive? How’s the car?” the man behind the camera asks - absolutely priceless. Jamie “The Claw” Jacobson (nickname given to him by forum members), 18 years old, now faces charges of theft over $5,000 and a court date on April 16th.

His friend in the car lost his hat to an eBay auction. No word on criminal charges for the Yankee's fan, or whether or not he was arrested.

The hat was found after the car was searched, along with receipts from a car wash and a 4-liter jug of oil. I guess Jamie-boy thought he was going to keep his new wheels.

Some are arguing the vigilante-esq tactics of the individuals who were instrumental in catching the thief. Should they have left the police work to the police or gone through with their efforts that ultimately landed Bozo in jail?

punk has been witness to the recovery of at least two vehicles via the efforts of VW Vortex members here in Arizona.

You can view the original call for help and the events that followed in the original forum post, here