Early in the afternoon of March 26, two young men visited Heritage Auto Sales, a specialty dealership in Calgary, Alberta. They asked to test-drive a dark gray 1991 Nissan Skyline GT-R, a performance model made primarily for the Japanese market and rarely seen in North America.
The car had been imported from Japan by Shaun Ironside for his dealership. Despite its reserved appearance, the Skyline GT-R is something of a performance icon to car enthusiasts and video gamers; it fitted well among the Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes in Ironside’s inventory.
One of the men had been to the dealership a week earlier for a ride, but he and Ironside did not get far. The car, with an engine modified for extra horsepower, began to act up. When the man returned with a friend for another try, Ironside was juggling two customers, so he just handed them the keys, explaining that there was only enough gas in the tank for a drive around the block.
But 15 minutes later Ironside noticed that the Skyline still hadn’t returned — and that the car that the two men had arrived in was gone. A bad feeling swelled in his gut; still, he reasoned, sometimes a buyer will take a car to have it inspected.
“It’s kind of hard to report a vehicle stolen 15 minutes after it’s not come back from a test drive,” he said in a telephone interview.
The car never returned. That night, after reporting its disappearance to the police, Ironside posted a message on Beyond.ca, a Web site for Canadian auto enthusiasts, to spread the word:
“10:28 p.m., March 26 Unfortunately I have to post this as one of my first posts my 1991 Skyline GT-R is officially STOLEN.”
The forum posting went on to describe the afternoon’s events, repeating information that was included in the police report. He described the driver as a white male in his early 20s, heavy-set, around 168cm, with a distinguishing feature: missing ring and middle fingers on his left hand.
PHOTOS
The post included several photos of the missing car and offered a cash reward, though as he typed, Ironside had little expectation of getting the car back, he said later.
But his post set off a cyberworld dragnet — a process definitely not recommended by the police — in a case the arresting officer called “a bizarre file.”
Results came quickly. The next day, James Lynch, a forum moderator, was leaving the Chinook Center mall in Calgary in his BMW M3 when he noticed a Nissan Skyline close behind him.
Having seen the photos of the missing Skyline online earlier in the day, Lynch immediately recognized the black wheels. He pulled alongside the Skyline at the next light, he said, and gave the driver a “rock out” sign, holding up a hand with pinkie and index finger extended and his other fingers clenched.
“He was dumb enough to do it back to me — and I got a picture right when he did it,” Lynch said.
When Ironside checked the Skyline message thread that afternoon, he scrolled through messages from dozens of members. At the bottom of the first page, he reached a surprising post by Lynch, whom he knew only by his forum handle, JAYMEZ:
“4:19 p.m., MARCH 27 I FOUUUNNNDDDDD THEM (EQUAL)) And I have pictures Called the police and chased them, also talked to them.”
Five minutes later, the photo, with the driver looking straight into the camera, appeared on the thread. He fit the description in Ironside’s police report, down to the white and black New York Yankees baseball cap. The photo wasn’t entirely clear, but the driver appeared to be missing two fingers.
Ironside forwarded the photo to the police, who told him, “The picture is as solid evidence as you’d ever find.”
Online auto forums have helped unravel crimes before. Two years ago, a detective in Los Angeles used the forum on FreshAlloy.com, a Nissan enthusiast site, to track down victims of an elaborate fraud scheme (that case, too, involved Nissan Skylines).
OPEN-SOURCE SOLVING
The Beyond.ca site had also played a role in earlier cases of what might be called open-source crime solving. A year ago, one of its members saw a hit-and-run accident a block in front of him, said Shelton Kwan, who co-founded the site with his cousin Ken Chan in 2002.
“He took pictures. And the guy who got hit was another member of ours,” Kwan said.
The victim posted a message about the incident an hour later. The witness with the camera followed up with clear shots of the suspect’s face and license plate — and it made the local news.
“We sent all of that to the cops,” Kwan said. “And that one was handled basically by the end of the day.”
Two hours after the photo taken by Lynch was posted, Allan Thomson, known on the forum as Numi, reported a Skyline sighting the previous night and gave directions to the area. The forum exploded with vigilante fervor; members living close by proposed a search.
Four hours later, Thomson posted again, this time to say that he had sent out a personal message pinpointing the car’s position:
“10:23 PM, March 27 FOUND!!! PMED with exact location. Guy drives it like he owns it. Idiot parks outside his house backed in so you cant see his plate.”
Exactly 15 minutes later, a forum member added a link to a Google map with directions to the house. Other members scrambled to narrow their Facebook searches for the suspect to the closest high school. At about 11pm, a link to the Facebook profile appeared online. The photos seemed to show the same person in the picture taken by Lynch.
In a little more than 24 hours from the time of Ironside’s first post on the stolen Skyline, members of the forum had spotted the car and assembled a name, photo, home address and Facebook profile for the person seen behind the wheel of the Skyline.
That night, Ironside joined a handful of forum members at the address where the car had been parked earlier. After midnight, he posted again:
“12:30 a.m., March 28 There was a older body style 94-01 Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup Red in color acting suspicious in the area. If it wasn’t anybody here I would be willing to bet that this guy got a little spooked from all the activity and is just riding around in another vehicle. Anyways, I had to book out and switch up vehicles to a less obvious ride.”
Ironside returned home at 2:30am and went to sleep.
Punit Patel, known as Dj-Stylz on Beyond.ca, followed the busy thread through the night. He saw that other forum members had searched the area to no avail and decided to leave for work early the next day to swing by the house. He didn’t think about what he would do if the Skyline was there.
POSTING A DISCOVERY
When Patel found the Skyline parked between two pickups, he blocked the driveway with his Acura and asked a friend to post his discovery. Then he called the police and waited.
Ironside was surprised by the latest development when he checked the forum in the morning. He jumped into his car and arrived at the house at 8:45am. Then he called 911 with his case number. The police arrived in minutes.
Patel’s next post detailed the events:
“11:26 a.m., March 28 The owner arrived and he called the cops because no one came for more then 2 hours. Cops came within 5 minutes after the owner called. I got pictures just give me a little time to upload. Also got a video of the guy getting arrested.”
For Ironside, it was the best possible outcome. His car was dirty but in good shape. He would need to replace the tires and fix a few rock chips.
“Basically this guy thought the car was his, from what I could tell,” he said. “There were receipts in the car for premium car washes. He had all his music collection in there,” he said.
Less than 48 hours after Ironside’s initial post, photos of the house and videos of the arrest appeared on the thread. The shaky video showed a single police officer escorting the suspect, confirmed by the Calgary police as 18-year-old Jamie Glen Jacobson, to an unmarked police car. He was charged with theft over US$5,000. He is free on bail pending a court appearance today.
“This guy has worldwide recognition for being a car thief for the rest of his life,” Ironside said. “The Internet is not going away.”
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then