– The car was brand new in December. It was only hand-washed, says the unfortunate car owner.
In good faith, car owner Knut Ole Dalseth delivered his light blue MG ZS EV at Adserø Bil AS in Trondheim, Tuesday night last week. He put the keys in the locked key box at the workshop.
– It was really just a small trifle that made me hand it in at the workshop, Dalseth tells Nettavisen.
The car should be checked for moisture. But what happened next was going to be quite dramatic. He knew little about the fact that the newly purchased electric SUV, purchased in December 2020, would soon be out on a final journey.
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Brand new in December
The day after he had delivered the electric SUV to the workshop, Dalseth received a message from the car workshop that the car had to be delivered.
– I thought it was an automated message, but called for safety, he says.
The car repair shop stated that they had been exposed to burglary, and that the key box had been broken.
Dalseth now understood that the text message from the workshop was not a data error. It dawned on him that his car had probably been stolen.
– I had only had the car for nine months, it was brand new in December. It was only hand-washed, says the unfortunate car owner.
He says that it was the first time in his 53-year-old life that he had bought a new car.
– How did you react when you understood that the car had been stolen?
– I was not prepared for my car to be stolen from a car repair shop. I was a little annoyed, nothing beyond that, but there has been more chaos with what had to be done afterwards, with reviews and such, he says.
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Followed the thieves online for several hours
When Dalseth reported the car stolen to the police, it turned out that they had already received a report from the car repair shop. The next day he logged on to the Autopass website.
From 05.41 to 08.17 in the morning, he followed the thieves on his own computer screen. He followed the car thieves’ journey in various streets in the center of Trondheim, before they finally drove east towards Stjørdal, and here the tracks stopped, but only for the time being.
– This caused great irritation. Considering the time of the theft, these are bandits who have it as a livelihood, he believes.
Saturday morning he was called by the police. They had found a car that was involved in an accident on Osloveien in Trondheim.
Before the car owner had barely had time to ask the police about the condition of the car, he saw his car pictured in Adresseavisen.
The relatively new electric car had been turned into a wreck. The car had overturned and was on the roof. The police stated that a person had crawled out with arm and chest pain, and had been sent to St. Olav’s Hospital for a check-up and rust test. It turned out that the driver did not have a driver’s license.
– It gets a little distant, it is not normal to experience this. It must be difficult to steal a car without a key. The thieves have broken into the workshop and broken the key box, this is not everyday food, he says, and emphasizes that the car workshop has not done anything wrong:
– They have kept the keys according to the regulations. It could have happened to any workshop.
When Dalseth arrived at Viking’s towing site, an investigator stood and took fingerprints of the car. In the car, investigators found both burglary equipment and stolen goods.
– The car was completely here, I first just started flirting. There was nothing I could do anything about, says Dalseth, who is happy that no one was seriously injured.
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