Las Cruces car heist: 11 vehicles worth $260K stolen from dealership

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (CBS4) — Base Auto Sales LLC in Las Cruces had 11 cars stolen straight off their lot Friday night.

CBS4 spoke with the owner of the dealership, Ronald Sugamosto about the break-in.

“It was horrifying," Sugamosto said. “They had keys kind of scattered out throughout the lot and lots of holes where cars were missing. So they hit us pretty hard.”

Friday night, his dealership was broken into and 11 cars were driven right off the lot.

“There was around $260,000 worth of cars taken,” Sugamosto said.

Five of the stolen vehicles were located and recovered by the Las Cruces Police Department, one by the Dona Ana Sheriff's Office and another one found being driven in El Paso, according to a spokesperson for LCPD.

“They stole 11 vehicles. So far, we've recovered seven of them and we have four more out there,” Sugamosto said.

Sugamosto told CBS4 the suspects allegedly broke in through a glass window, stole several keys and went through the lot checking which key matched which vehicle.

“They stole also a bunch of keys so they cost about $450 probably because all the remotes are getting reprogrammed and all that. It's probably going to compute around $10,000 worth of damage,” Sugamosto said.

He also said there wasn't any surveillance video of the burglary because the cameras malfunctioned and were not fixed at the time of the break-in.

However, he still felt his lot was protected.

Sugamosto added that there is a $500 reward for any information that leads to the finding of each of the remaining four cars missing.

• White 2016 Ram 3500
• Black 2019 Ford Explorer XLT
• Silver 2020 Chevrolet Trax LT
• White 2018 Jeep Cherokee

“We just want to get our cars back,” Sugamosto said.

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