Your car has been stolen. What you should do and what the police do to find it

SAN ANTONIO – It can be an unpleasant surprise to walk into where you parked your car and find it gone.

According to statistics from the San Antonio Police Department, that scenario became a reality for more than 19,000 people in the city in one year.

MAP: 19,000 cars reported stolen in San Antonio in 12 months. See where in the searchable database.

KSAT 12 News obtained data from SAPD that shows 18,784 vehicles were reported stolen between May 1, 2023 and May 1, 2024.

“I looked and my truck was gone,” Jocsan Valdez recently told KSAT 12 News. “I don’t know. I was just shocked.”

Valdez had parked his black 2021 GMC Sierra Denali pickup in its usual spot at his Medical Center apartment complex.

Even though he said he locked the doors and had surveillance cameras trained on the truck, the thieves still managed to drive away with it.

Although he took the important first step by immediately reporting the theft to the police, he still fears that his truck is gone for good.

Based on SAPD data, there’s a 50-50 chance he’s right. The data shows that about half of the vehicles reported stolen are never recovered.

“Unfortunately, we can’t search every vehicle individually,” said an undercover detective working with the SAPD’s vehicle crimes unit.

While her team investigates new ways to reduce car theft, they also use technology to track stolen vehicles.

The detective said that when a car is reported stolen, information about the car is uploaded to a national database.

Patrol officers, using special license plate readers in their cars, help in the hunt. The devices in their cars can scan the license plates of passing vehicles in seconds.

The license plate readers emit a loud signal when they detect a license plate that has been registered as stolen.

“You get a weird kind of (sound),” said Officer Eddie Chavez of the SAPD. “It sounds like a video game bell of some kind.”

Chavez said he has detected at least four stolen vehicles in the four months since the device was installed in his patrol car.

In these cases, the police may be able to claim damages.

However, they say vehicle owners can increase the chances of success by providing them with as much information as possible about the stolen car.

“For example, if there are GPS trackers in your vehicle, that information is useful to us,” the undercover detective said.

While their goal is to solve stolen car cases, they say all car owners should be concerned with prevention.

According to police, car thieves can be dissuaded by parking in a spot with lots of pedestrians, locking your car doors and using a steering wheel lock.