Cars stolen in the United States are smuggled to Mexico, where it is almost impossible to recover them.

Tijuana, Mexico — After a month away, Catherine Vermillion returned home to her San Diego apartment and an empty parking space.

“I looked up and realized my car was gone,” Vermillion told CBS News. “I remembered I had an AirTag in the car, so I checked my phone and the AirTag showed my car was in Tijuana, Mexico.”

When she saw where the AirTag appeared, she said she was “shocked and in disbelief.”

Disbelief turned to frustration after she said local police couldn’t help her.

“They just said because it was across the border they couldn’t go get it even though I could show them it was only 45 minutes away,” Vermillion said.

It’s a frustration shared by the California Highway Patrol.

“As far as state borders go, we can’t cross that line,” said CHP Lt. David Navarro.

Navarro warned that organized theft rings are preying on high-end SUVs, pickup trucks and performance cars, stealing them from the United States and then smuggling them into Mexico. He said it was lucrative, difficult to track and often impossible to get these cars back once they crossed the border.

Over the past four years alone, cogeneration data shows the number of stolen vehicles Tracked people crossing the border from California, Arizona and Texas jumped 79%.

“If a vehicle is stolen in the middle of the night and the victim doesn’t wake up until 7 a.m., well, if the vehicle is stolen at 2 o’clock, you have about five hours to haul that vehicle away,” Navarro said. “If this vehicle is not flagged in the system and it passes through this camera, then no, it will not be alerted at all.”

That’s exactly what happened to Vermillion’s Jeep. The difference was that she knew exactly where it ended – 46 miles away, across the border in Tijuana.

Enter Phil Mohr, a repo man who has spent the last 20 years as a stolen car bounty hunter in Mexico.

Mohr said a lot of stolen cars end next to the Tijuana airport, a few hundred meters from the US-Mexico border.

“This is an organized drop-off point,” Mohr said.

Organized in many cases by cartelwhose cars federal agents told CBS News drove to Mexico and used them to smuggle drugs and weapons.

Mohr worked with local law enforcement in Mexico to repossess Vermillion’s car and bring it back to San Diego.

“It feels like a victory,” Mohr said. “It’s like you’ve righted a wrong in the world.”

A Vermillion neighbor took a photo to capture the moment Mohr brought her car back.

“I just have my hands up, like, whoa,” Vermillion said. “It was like the best day of my life.”

For Vermillion, it was the best day ever, but for most, that day never comes.