"Jon Jon" Macapalang, a staff sergeant in the Air Force, had been in the islands for only three months when a set of rare custom wheels for his award-winning Hyundai Genesis coupe, which is on its way from California, were stolen from the garage of his Pearl City home Nov. 25.
With help from the local car community, he got them back just one day after they were stolen.
"Once I posted on Facebook that my wheels were taken from me, news spread online like wildfire," he said. "Next thing I knew, people across the U.S. and even some parts of Japan knew of my predicament.
"Upon returning home from work Monday evening (Nov. 26), I noticed my phone had been blowing up with messages from people on the island that I had never met, saying they thought they’d seen my wheels on Craigslist."
The wheels, made by a Japanese company, are so rare, Macapalang said, that he owns four of just 10 that exist in the country. Brand new they are worth more than $4,000 without tires, he said.
Macapalang, 29, arranged to meet with the seller that night in McCully, but the meeting fell through.
He didn’t know it at the time, but there was another potential buyer, Carmelo Diaz III, a local car enthusiast who through the Internet also knew the wheels were possibly Macapalang’s.
Diaz and another car enthusiast met with the seller that Monday night at the Lock Up Self Storage facility across Kapiolani Boulevard from McCully Shopping Center. They were part of a sting operation, and police arrived and arrested Luke J. Warner of Waikiki for alleged possession of stolen goods.
Warner, 45, is a pawnshop broker and licensed secondhand dealer arrested in a sting operation earlier this year after a two-month police investigation for allegedly buying and selling stolen goods. He faces a May 6 court date for allegedly buying and selling stolen goods including jewelry, a flat-screen television and a .45-caliber handgun.
This time, he was arrested for allegedly trying to sell three tires and customized rims that were stolen a day earlier from Macapalang’s Pearl City home.
Warner was arrested on suspicion of second-degree theft and released Wednesday afternoon pending further investigation.
He has not been charged in the case, but has convictions for drug possession and burglary.
In August an Oahu grand jury returned an indictment charging Warner with multiple theft and drug trafficking charges. The indictment also charged Warner with attempting to violate the prohibition on convicted felons owning or possessing firearms.
Following a two-month investigation that involved the help of city prosecutors, a string operation was conducted at Warner’s pawnshop in Waikiki, Careful Concepts. Police recovered jewelry, a flat-screen television and a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun which they suspected were stolen. Among the items seized as evidence were about $20,000 in crystal methamphetamine and highly sought prescription drugs including oxycodone and a generic form of Viagra, and about $40,000 in $100 bills.
Police said Warner did business out of his car, his 34th-floor Hawaiian Monarch Hotel home and the hotel’s lobby. They said he knowingly accepted stolen goods for which he paid cash or traded for drugs.
Warner was released on bail in the August case.
Police made Warner’s arrest public in August to publicize their push for laws designed to make pawn and secondhand dealers more accountable for merchandise they buy and sell.
Macapalang said he was surprised by the show of support from car enthusiasts all over, and thankful that so many people used the Internet to spread the word and help get his wheels back.
"It was more like me venting at the time," he said of the Facebook and Instagram posts he made. "I didn’t know they would get around the island that quickly, especially in the car community because I don’t really know the community here. But all I can really say is thanks."
