Robbery -car break-in

We are staying in upper Encar. Rosas with friends.
I screwed up and loaded up my suitcase and left my Canon camera bag in the car by mistake last night
woke up at 5:30 am to discover we had lost it all, broke out the glass, and my dam alarm didin't go off, hum.
1. Canon D-40 and custom backpack for it $1,700
2. black suitcase with all of my clothes- priceless to me
3. Light green backpack with another small Canon digital camera and digital weather pocket computer $1,000

my Tulum cell is 984-133-5859
We will be back Oct. 1st to live here full time in a house were renting Oct. 1st

Wow.....sorry to hear that Larry. Twas an expensive lesson for sure. Hopefully you have some sort of insurance.

BTW, you should report this to Lakeside Crime. There is a link here at the top of the home page.

larryc wrote:We are staying in upper Encar. Rosas with friends.

Where is this place in relation to Ajijic or Chapala? I'm not familiar with the name.

Street Farm Guad is on, no?

Loaded cars are a target for thieves, since that's where the good stuff is. Sorry to hear about your situation, but the car window was the only thing standing between your good stuff and the thief. BTW: car alarms aren't much use around here. The thieves are in and out FAST, and the alarms tend to be ignored as well. Bear this in mind when traveling, all. We got ripped off the same way.

You can report this to lakesidecrime.com - they list all crimes that they can find out about lakeside on their website. All descriptions of crimes are kept anonymous.

Intercasa wrote:Street Farm Guad is on, no?

Yes, Encarnacion Rosas at the highway has the Farmacia Guadalajara on one side and Actinver on the other side.

Upper Encarnacion Rosas would be the road going up the hillside away from the lake.

Thanks for sharing this unpleasant experience with us Larry. Sorry to hear of your misfortune.

These thieves are accomplished at their craft and not just at taking belongings from inside your car - belongings, by the way, which are uninsurable if you have a Mexican plated car with Mexican insurance as do we. Ever since we lost some exterior rear view mirrors in a New York Second in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Guadalajara a few years ago, we try to never park in the street there or here at the lake or anywhere else for that matter if possible. In that Gudalajara incident, we only left the car parked among many other cars on a street busy with heavy traffic for a couple of minutes during the day while we ran into a nearby store. Now, even when we go for walks in the La Floresta area of Ajijic in the middle of the day, we park our car in a fee garage rather than on the streets of La Floresta. We´ve heard that these guys working the La Floresta area can drop an engine out of a locked car in record time and we understand that our insurance does not cover just a missing engine but only a whole missing car.

For those of you planning to purchase a home at Lakeside or anywhere else in Mexico, we suggest you make secure inside parking either at the house or in a nearby fully staffed garage for hire a top priority. We also live in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas and never park in the street there if we can avoid it. You do not want to have a car or belongings in a car stolen in Chiapas.

What a horrible loss & yes, very expensive lesson.

We quickly learned after moving to Mexico as our Mexican friends wouldn't allow us to leave our laptop, carried in a backpack, in our vehicle. Not only that, they didn't want our vehicle left on the street until we bought a steering wheel bar. It's just when you let your guard down that stuff like this happens. It did us. Had a history of no problems and got careless. Boom, we were hit and now my humble treasure is a memory. Our last guests down visiting from NOB told me I was paranoid. I said nope, just very aware and take all the precautions after being robbed. They said they've been robbed several times but let me tell you, never inside their home. They had things stolen from the garage, after leaving the door wide open, and their motor home. We had intruders rummage through our drawers and make a big mess. Now we have bars windows, big barking dogs, little yappy dogs, and razor wire. Lock everything up and pray. You do your part and hopefully, everything will go well with you!

Larry, in case you didn't know. Don't ever leave out a checkbook. Thieves will take random checks out of order so you don't notice, find someone working in the bank who will cash a forged check and the bank or police won't help you. Many people keep their checkbooks in a security box.

I meant to say many people keep their checkbooks in a safety deposit box.

hound dog wrote:Thanks for sharing this unpleasant experience with us Larry. Sorry to hear of your misfortune.

These thieves are accomplished at their craft and not just at taking belongings from inside your car - belongings, by the way, which are uninsurable if you have a Mexican plated car with Mexican insurance as do we. Ever since we lost some exterior rear view mirrors in a New York Second in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Guadalajara a few years ago, we try to never park in the street there or here at the lake or anywhere else for that matter if possible. In that Gudalajara incident, we only left the car parked among many other cars on a street busy with heavy traffic for a couple of minutes during the day while we ran into a nearby store. Now, even when we go for walks in the La Floresta area of Ajijic in the middle of the day, we park our car in a fee garage rather than on the streets of La Floresta. We´ve heard that these guys working the La Floresta area can drop an engine out of a locked car in record time and we understand that our insurance does not cover just a missing engine but only a whole missing car.

For those of you planning to purchase a home at Lakeside or anywhere else in Mexico, we suggest you make secure inside parking either at the house or in a nearby fully staffed garage for hire a top priority. We also live in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas and never park in the street there if we can avoid it. You do not want to have a car or belongings in a car stolen in Chiapas.

Mr. Dawg, can one not purchase a secondary policy from some sort of international insurance firm (IE Lloyds of London) to cover such losses?

Auto break-ins are a crime of opportunity NOB and SOB and I have serious doubts whether it is any worse SOB than in many locations NOB?

In the past 13 years of traveling to Mexico, we have only experienced one instance where something was removed from our vehicle and that was when he parked our Mexico car parked directly in front of the old Ajijic Grill (now Tango) with the convertible top down. What was missing? Loose change that was sitting in the ash tray. In recent years (up to our most recent trip), we have brought down a Windstar minivan with dark tinted windows and it gets loaded to the ceiling. Sure we are careful to remove the most important items and bring them into the hotel but we sure as heck don't unload the van at night. While we lean towards hotels with secure parking, there have been occasions when none was available and we still haven't had a problem. I have a feeling that it may be more of a problem in areas with more Gringos and more non-Mexican plated vehicles?

i'm not blaming anyone here buy myself. It was STUPID on my part.
I knew better but was not thinking and in a hurry to bug out at 5 am to drive back to Tulum.
I meet a really nice repair shop for the window thru Rolly, Car City -Cesar who i think owns it. He replaced my glass like new as promised for $3,800 pesos and gave me back my car looking alot better than i dropped it off..

Nice to be able to find a silver lining in a dreadful experience. Good for you.

Been robbed SOB and NOB. For me, it's the intrusion into your personal and private space that is the worst.

Hope you have a safe trip back to Tulum without further aggravation.

ferret wrote:
Hope you have a safe trip back to Tulum without further aggravation.

Just out of simple curiosity, at what point does the theft of simple belongings from a car left unattended by an irresponsible foreigner at Lakeside become a criminal act approaching the theft of indigenous Caribbean beach lands sold off by ejido councils at dimes on the dollar to opportunistic "gringos" seeking to enrich their encroachments on historically protected underwater reserves.

Interesting point Dawg. In your scenario though, there are two willing participants...the Ejido council and the foreign buyer.

In our experience, I wouldn't touch Ejido land with a 50 foot pole. Invariably the council or the head of the council is corrupt and only out for themselves. They do not look very far into the future.

The flip side is that if the Ejido doesn't profit from the land, then Infonavit will just take it, relocate them and develop the land for tourist profit dollars themselves.

It's a nasty cut throat world out there.

Sound like the Ejido are no different than the "first nations" people up here in Canada. Sell it for next to nothing, then complain and get another crack at the sale. Wish I could get the same terms.........

CanuckBob wrote:Sound like the Ejido are no different than the "first nations" people up here in Canada. Sell it for next to nothing, then complain and get another crack at the sale. Wish I could get the same terms.........

“Native Americans” in the US, however, they built Casinos and now are doing pretty well. Many now are off welfare. (so I’m not paying their food bill )

Parker wrote:
“Native Americans” in the US, however, they built Casinos and now are doing pretty well. Many now are off welfare. (so I’m not paying their food bill )

Those who are doing well are the corrupt tribal leaders, politicians and organized crime fronts running and milking those casinos. Perhaps, since your ancestors slaughtered their ancestors and stole their land as did my ancestors in the Souheastern states before forcing the Native Americans there on a death march to the Oklahoma Territory, you and I might welcome an opportunity to make amends for the crimes of our antecedents committed long ago by paying "their" food bill for a while. We could FedEx a thousand Cheese Whoppers to North Dakota before it freezes up there.

Nope........I don't pay my grand daddies bar tab............nor should I be expected to.

Parker didn't either.

David wrote:Parker didn't either.

No, but did for about twenty years. I’m glad they’re doing well and it seems they have a certain amount of self-respect for doing something for themselves. I don’t doubt there is corruption but a little win-win can’t hurt. IMHO