Imagine dropping your beloved Jeep at the shop only to get ghosted by the mechanic. The guy has your vehicle and your $575 deposit. After calling and texting repeatedly, you catch a ride to the garage to confront him yourself. But the garage is…just gone. Are you and your Jeep the victims of some Ocean’s 11 heist?

It all began with a Jeep transmission failure

Juan Agosto admits his Jeep has a “special place in my heart.” So when the Houston, Texas resident found his transmission no longer working, he asked around for a good shop. He found Carlos Mireles on social media and gave the man a visit at his garage on Chippewa Boulevard.

“He told me, ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it, simple rebuild. We should have it done in a week.’”

Pay a $575 deposit, leave the Jeep, come back when it’s done. Seemed simple enough. But a week later, Mireles said it wasn’t done. Months later, he said it was done. Then he stopped responding to Agosto’s messages. When Agosto arrived at the shop on Chippewa Boulevard, the business was gone. Just vanished.

Agosto admits, “I should have known this was a scam.”

Hunting down Mireles and the disappearing Jeep

Over a year after his Jeep’s transmission first failed, Agosto received a very strange phone call. The caller was looking at a Jeep at an auto shop on nearby Deer Trail. He’d found Agosto’s information in the glovebox. The shop owner? Carlos Mireles, of course.

Agosto arrived at the new shop. He confronted Mireles, demanded his vehicle back, and said he was contacting the police. He was sure he finally had Mireles cornered. The mechanic’s reaction shocked him.

“When I threatened that I was going to call the cops, he pretty much laughed at me and said, ‘That happens to me all the time. They can’t do anything to me.’”

Mireles finally gets justice

On May 3, Mireles was arrested. He’s been charged with stealing $40,000+ in parts and vehicles from his customers. Agosto is one of four who has come forward and filed a report. But something tells us he won’t be the last.

“He needs to be in jail because it’s not just me, but a lot of people.”

Mireles was arrested driving a car with a fake license plate. That means he’s also charged with tampering with a government record.

The police were able to use license plate cameras to track down Agosto’s Jeep, which is now fully operational and was reportedly resold by Mireles. Looks like the cops can do something to Mireles after all.