Social media users help recover stolen car in Thika.

The scene where the stolen car was recovered in Murera area, Juja after word went round online that it had earlier been stolen from Thika.

With the help of the police, community and social media, what started as a bad day turned around for one Anthony Alfred resident whose car was stolen early Friday morning.

According to Samuel Chege, Alfred's driver, he woke up Monday morning to find the Toyota Premio KBS 487V missing from its parking spot in Mundia Estate Thika West Sub-County.

“I got out this morning to start the engine in preparation to leave for work but to my shock it was missing. Upon interrogating the security guards they admitted that the car was driven off at around 5am in the morning while I was still in the house,” said Chege.

According to the guards, they opened the gate to let this vehicle and another one registration number KBV (didn’t get the other digits) leave thinking that it was Chege behind the wheels.

The two vehicles drove past Bidco Limited towards Garissa Road via General Kago Road.

Chege notified Alfred of the loss and immediately filed a police report at the Thika Police Station.

Confirming the incident, Thika OCPD Willy Simba said that police immediately swung into action and alerted their counterparts from neighbouring stations where the manhunt for the car was mounted.

Alfred then shared details of the theft on Facebook and the information shared by the public led to its recovery in Matangi-ini area, Murera Location of Juja Constituency.

“I turned to Facebook because, in my opinion, that is where almost everybody comes together. Social media reaches so many more people which makes it very easy to spread the message across,” said Alfred.

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Sure to his word, one Lucas Waweru noticed an abandoned Toyota Premio vehicle near their neighbourhood and alerted area police. He went ahead and posted it on his Facebook accounting asking anyone who knows the owner to notify them.

A social media user, Grace Wanjiku Muteru, who had seen the theft alert earlier in the morning, contacted Alfred through the number on the alert and he was happily reunited with his treasured machine.

Even though it had some of its systems vandalised by the thugs as they gained entry to the vehicle, Alfred had God, the social media fraternity and the police to thank for its recovery.

The car was towed to Juja Police Station as the police made arrangements to hand it over to its rightful owner.

No arrest has so far been reported.

Thika has of late been dogged by cases of car thefts especially from parking lot an issue that has become a concern to the residents.