Owner of Mesquite auto shop remains optimistic despite recent burglary

MESQUITE, Texas - A local business owner is hoping someone can help identify the people responsible for a burglary at his auto shop, as they ran off with a safe full of cash.

It was all caught on surveillance camera at Stiles Automotive in Mesquite.

The owner said it happened Wednesday morning, before anyone had come in for the day.

Police are now investigating.

The owner of the shop said tens of thousands of dollars are now gone. 

He said, with all of the cameras and alarms, he thought it would be safe.

"I love my job. It’s one of my things," said Jorge Cortes, owner of Stiles Automotive.

It’s a walk into work Cortes has been doing since he was 24.

Now, he is facing the biggest setback after a brazen break-in. 

"It’s a hard thing to swallow," he said.

Tens of thousands of dollars were stolen from his cash box and his safe. 

"You can tell right there, they cut the lock with the saw, they punched the window and put his hand in there, and then unlocked from the inside," Cortes said.

Surveillance video shows two people dressed in hoods exit a white truck parked outside just before 5 a.m. on Wednesday, August 31. 

The thieves immediately go through all the drawers, eventually finding a silver cash box and a black safe. 

One of them is seen carrying the safe out as the alarm continues to blare. 

Cortes was then notified to head down to the shop. 

"I went in there and didn’t see the safe," he recalled. "I said, ‘Oh my goodness.’"

Cortes said he was saving up for business renovations, plus, for personal reasons, as he had money in there he had saved for his family. 

"I think it was stupid to leave it in there honestly. It happened once, won’t happen twice. I learned my lesson," he said.

It was a hard lesson to learn, but Cortes points out the positive.

"We are alive. We have help and we can start again," he said.

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Following Labor Day, the shop will open Tuesday, with a message to their customers. 

"We are here for business, and we are going to keep going and offer service for community," Cortes said.