A Langley, B.C. family is crediting security video captured by their Tesla for helping the return of their stolen travel trailer.
Derek, who Global News has greed not to identify, said the 29-foot unit had only been out of storage for a few hours before thieves made off with it in the early hours of Thursday morning.
When he got up at 6 a.m., it was gone from the family’s driveway.
“It was like waking up out of a dream, I wasn’t sure at first,” he said.
“I kind of saw nothing and couldn’t remember: did I actually bring it home? Am I waking up here? And 10 seconds later it hit me that it was actually gone.”
The entire heist, it turned out, only took about five minutes.
Video from the Tesla, which has a motion-activated camera system, showed a man on a bicycle ride into the cul-de-sac, then ride away.
“A few minutes later, a truck pulled in … slowly turned around, and then backed right up to the trailer. They fiddled around a bit and within two minutes it was on their truck and they pulled away.”
Video shows the trailer being pulled over its wheel chocks and away down the street with cables dangling behind it.
Langley RCMP did not respond to requests for comment about the incident.
But late Thursday, police recovered the RV, according to Derek.
The trailer was found in a rural area of Agassiz, where police reportedly discovered several other potentially stolen trailers and other stolen goods.
An officer recognized the truck and RV thanks to the video captured by the Tesla, he said. After sharing the video with Global News and on social media, the family also received several tips that the trailer had been spotted in the Agassiz area.
“There’s a good part of that that really did help,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a big part of it.”
But it will be some time before Derek will be able to use the RV — which has minor damage, and will be held as evidence for a few weeks.