Dallas

Porch Pirates ‘Tailgate' Food Delivery Services to Steal Packages

As food delivery services grow more popular across North Texas, a Dallas man is warning others after he said it played a role in recent porch thefts.

Michael Carnevale said he first had a package go missing outside of his Oak Lawn home back in November.

"I actually thought my Amazon driver delivered it to the wrong location or that they said they delivered but they hadn't. There had been a delay," said Carnavale.

But when he went back to check the two cameras outside of his front door, he realized the package had been snatched.

He was surprised to see it happen behind the secured gate that surrounds his property until he dug even further back in the video to realize the thieves had come in with a neighbor's dinner delivery.

"It's someone who was doing a good thing supposedly delivery food for someone and then taking a package kind of canceling it all out," said Carnavale.

Carnavale said he was mortified and surprised something like that could happen in his gated complex until it happened again Tuesday.

That's when he said his video shows a delivery driver park out front to drop off food before letting another person in through the gate

"You can see the Amazon package here. You'll notice there's audio, but they're not talking on the phone. It's a ploy. They pick up the package. Away they go," said Carnavale.

Both times, he said the value of the packages was minimal. Still, he filed a police report and plans to change his delivery habits in case the thieves don't change their's.

"Hey if it's in an Amazon locker, and I'm the only one with the code, and they do a great job of delivering things there, then that's my solution," said Carnavale.

Carnavale said his surveillance video doesn't show which services the thieves were working on behalf of.

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