MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An investigation into stolen property led police to bust a potential chop shop at a home in Berclair Wednesday, according to an incident report.
WREG spotted multiple cars, tools and tires left behind the home on Deborah Avenue.
“It was just a lot of police on the street for a couple of hours,” neighbor Josie Tyson said.
Tyson and others said police unloaded at least two stolen vehicles. Reports showed police took away more than $20,000 in stolen goods, including two trailers and a pick-up truck listed stolen in Natchez, Mississippi.
According to the incident report, officers identified one of the trailers as reported stolen from Belfor Restoration at a southeast Memphis industrial park on June 6.
Police also said they found tools reported stolen from a home under construction on Barfield Road in east Memphis.
Records show police arrested Carlos Fuentes, 37, and charged him with two counts of theft of property between $10,000 and $60,000, violation of chop shop laws, four counts of narcotics possession and aggravated burglary.
Tyson, a mother who lives a few doors down, was surprised.
“Makes me rest a lot easier. But I mean we’d never known because not a lot of traffic up and down the streets or anything so they kept it pretty quiet,” she said.
Sources said the chop shop might’ve relocated from one we reported in May in Nutbush. Cops busted that one after neighbors said the crooks made life miserable.
“People round here couldn’t get no sleep. They’d block the street with their trailers,” one man told us.
No one answered at the Deborah Avenue home when WREG was there Thursday. Online records showed Fuentes posted a $30,000 bond.
