The heist involving a Tinder car was chaotic, while the subsequent revenge scheme was even more disorganized.

He was a self-made tech millionaire looking for a good time. But a Tinder date turned out to be a brazen car theft scam. And things only got worse when he tried to get his prized Jaguar back.

Mike Vallejo, a 32-year-old technology entrepreneur and self-proclaimed multimillionaire from Portland, Oregon, had recently separated from his wife of four years. Their marriage had been on the skids for a while, the true downfall of which was spurred by Mike making out and getting “handsy,” as he put it, with a much younger woman named Lauren.  This past August, Lauren pitched Mike, who was now officially single, on having a threesome with her and her friend Haley. Youthful and blonde faces impeccably sculpted by makeup, the duo was freewheeling and eager for a good time. Mike readily agreed, and the three of them congregated at a swanky boutique hotel in downtown Portland. “I did a line of cocaine off of Lauren’s ass,” Haley said. “That got Mike excited.”  “It was awesome,” he told me. Although Mike had previously hooked up with Lauren, he explained that he began dating Haley after the threesome. (“We were not dating,” Haley said. “I can’t have anyone think I was dating him. Let’s just say we were, um, hanging out and he liked me.”) In November, Haley left town for a family vacation.  Mike, missing her, decided to distract himself by joining Tinder. “I got, like, 15 matches within the first 12 hours,” he said.  The dopaminergic rush of the matches, and the potential of meeting up with the women on the other end of his screen, temporarily soothed the loneliness brought on by Haley’s absence and Mike’s ongoing marital separation. “I feel like my wife leaving me made me want, even more, to give the best to others,” he said. “I just wanted to spend time with someone. It was more of feeling like there’s a void that I needed to fill by getting attention or affection from others.”
DarkByBox:

He was a self-made tech millionaire looking for a good time. But a Tinder date turned out to be a brazen car theft scam. And things only got worse when he tried to get his prized Jaguar back.

Mike Vallejo, a 32-year-old technology entrepreneur and self-proclaimed multimillionaire from Portland, Oregon, had recently separated from his wife of four years. Their marriage had been on the skids for a while, the true downfall of which was spurred by Mike making out and getting “handsy,” as he put it, with a much younger woman named Lauren.  This past August, Lauren pitched Mike, who was now officially single, on having a threesome with her and her friend Haley. Youthful and blonde faces impeccably sculpted by makeup, the duo was freewheeling and eager for a good time. Mike readily agreed, and the three of them congregated at a swanky boutique hotel in downtown Portland. “I did a line of cocaine off of Lauren’s ass,” Haley said. “That got Mike excited.”  “It was awesome,” he told me. Although Mike had previously hooked up with Lauren, he explained that he began dating Haley after the threesome. (“We were not dating,” Haley said. “I can’t have anyone think I was dating him. Let’s just say we were, um, hanging out and he liked me.”) In November, Haley left town for a family vacation.  Mike, missing her, decided to distract himself by joining Tinder. “I got, like, 15 matches within the first 12 hours,” he said.  The dopaminergic rush of the matches, and the potential of meeting up with the women on the other end of his screen, temporarily soothed the loneliness brought on by Haley’s absence and Mike’s ongoing marital separation. “I feel like my wife leaving me made me want, even more, to give the best to others,” he said. “I just wanted to spend time with someone. It was more of feeling like there’s a void that I needed to fill by getting attention or affection from others.”

Mike quickly matched with a woman named Ky. She seemed cute, if somewhat inscrutable, with no biographical details and photographs that included only a mirror selfie and a snapshot of her butt in a bikini. “I am the sweetest person you will ever meet,” she would later tell him. Mike had never used Tinder before; he told Ky that he’d be happy to get together. So Mike got ready for their date. He put on jeans and a high-end watch, his short haircut neatly framing his boyish face. He trimmed the shadowy stubble that stretched from chin to cheek into a uniform blanket of mature bachelorhood. He was rich, single, and ready to have some more fun.

But then Ky started messaging Mike strange questions. Do you want to get a hotel? Sure. How will you pay? Credit card. Can you pull out cash instead? Okay. (Thankfully for Mike, he never hit up an ATM.)  In hindsight, these questions were obviously red flags. In fact, there were many red flags. Mike had seemingly made vast sums of money, first through his SEO and website development company NS Modern and, more recently, via a watermelon drink called Mela, which boasts slick online branding and, according to Mike, is gearing up for a funding round at a $35 million valuation. But despite his experience as a tech entrepreneur, he was blinded by his eagerness to assume his role as a single man with a lot to offer. He ignored the warning signs and continued the conversation. What kind of car do you drive? A Jaguar. Can I drive it? Um, sure. “Run into the woods right now, or we will kill you.” Ky drove erratically, looping around to the highway, clearly unaware of how to navigate the city. (She once reposted a meme on her alleged Facebook account that read, “I don’t drive like a girl ‍♀️ As soon as you get in my car … Welcome to GTA .”) It was past midnight, hardly the ideal time for a dinner date. They settled on a Denny’s in Happy Valley, just southeast of Portland.

In the confines of a booth, and under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the diner, Mike realized Ky didn’t look like her profile pictures. He’d been catfished. In the moment, all Mike could do was think about how much this rendezvous “sucks ass,” he said. But he decided to be cordial and finish the date. Ky ordered chocolate chip pancakes. Mike didn’t eat.

Instead, he fielded a text message from an acquaintance, who asked what he was doing. “I’m at Denny’s with a friend,” he typed back. Mike asked Ky if he could take her picture so he could send it to his buddy. “What should I do?” she asked.  Mike thought Ky was “kind of ugly” and didn’t want his friend to see her face, so he told her to just look down. She seemed unfazed and obliged. Mike sent the photo. After the meal, Mike said he let Ky drive again, and they made their way to Oregon City, where she told him she was spending the night at a friend’s place. She pulled up in front of the house, and they waited for her friend to text back.  Mike didn’t understand why she couldn’t just go knock on the door. “Let’s just wait,” Ky said. Ten awkward minutes passed, silence filling the car. Mike felt that something was off.  “Don’t judge me,” Ky said, “but I’m going to go pee outside in a bush.”  “Okay,” he said. “I’m not judging you.”  Ky turned the car off and got out. She took the keys with her. Mike sat alone in his Jaguar, darkness surrounding him. It was 2 in the morning now, and it was raining — harder and harder, coming down in sheets. Mike started to freak out. He felt like he was in a horror movie.

Mike recounted to me what happened next: Ky returned five minutes later and sat down in the driver’s seat, keys in hand. Suddenly, two men emerged at the passenger window. One brandished a pistol; the other, a large military-style knife.  “Get the fuck out of the car!” Mike remembered one of the men shouting. Terrified at the thought of being shot or stabbed, he complied. The men forced him away from the Jaguar — gun pointed at his chest, knife thrusted forward near his gut. “Step back or we are going to kill you,” one of them said. The man with the knife kicked him in the chest, nearly knocking him over.  “Don’t do anything stupid,” the other guy told him, his gun aimed firmly at Mike’s heart. “Give me your fucking wallet, and take off the watch right now.” Mike handed over his phone, wallet, and gold Movado.  “Run into the woods right now, or we will kill you,” said the man with the knife.  “I am not going anywhere,” Mike told them. “You guys already took all my shit. Just go.”  Mike recalled that Ky slid over into the passenger seat while the man with the gun jumped into the driver’s seat, fired up the Jaguar F-Type roadster — for which Mike had spent over $50,000 — and sped away. The other guy, knife still inches from Mike’s gut, forced Mike to stay put while the gunman and Ky looped around the block to the adjacent side of the nearest building. The man with the knife then sprinted down a walkway that cut through the block to the awaiting Jaguar. Ky and the other attacker let him in — and then the three of them were gone.

“They had it all planned out,” Mike said. “Bro, I had been Tinder swindled!” It appeared to be an effortlessly executed con. Mike was an SEO guru who got rich by knowing what people were looking for. Now, he’d been duped by a woman who apparently knew exactly what he was in search of — and that had made him the perfect mark.

Portland has seen a drastic rise in vehicle thefts over the past three years, with nearly 11,000 vehicles reported stolen in 2022, according to Portland Police Bureau statistics, a more than 20 percent increase over the previous year. (Only 6,382 vehicles were reported stolen throughout all of 2019.) But more than the theft of the car,…