Miami-Dade Police last month recovered a stolen excavating tractor from a property on Krome Avenue owned by the new and improved Miami City Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
The $117,000 tractor, owned by Earth Movers in Homestead, was stolen from a construction site at Southwest 136th Street and 157th Avenue between about 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 3, and 10 a.m. Monday, Jan 6. When a worker noticed the heavy equipment missing that morning, he called police to report it. He also reported that the GPS on the tractor showed it was at a property on Krome Avenue just off 
Southwest 122nd Street.
A police helicopter “conducted a fly-over” and confirmed the orange tractor that looks somewhat like the one in the picture was “parked in a nursery.”
The grand theft incident report says that “consent to search was obtained from the owner of the nursery, Alejandro Diaz de la Portilla, and the caretaker other (Mirabal, Ramon). The listed item was found inside the listed property and returned to the rightful owner.”
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla finally cons his way back into office in Miami
The property is where ADLP’s dad would hang out years ago, tending to young plants like aging Cuban men like to do. Many years ago, he gave Ladra a mango tree 
that still grows in my father’s back yard. We call her Alexis. She still kinda small, but her mangoes are sweet.
It is also where The Dean — sometimes with his brothers, former Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and former School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla — escaped to spend time with friends and close political allies, and drink copious amounts of Johnny Walker Black and chain smoke Malboro Lights while they conspired. That’s when Alex drank and smoked like a fiend, which he reportedly quit after a scare. And he does look a lot better than he used to.
Read related: More Miami power plays prove ADLP is the new boss, runs the show
The lot, just over 175,000 square feet, has been in the family since Diaz de la Portilla’s mother, Fabiola 
Diaz, purchased it in 1990 for $140,000. It’s worth about $258,750, according to the property appraiser’s office. That’s market value. The assessed value went from $31,391 when Alex bought it from her, or she transferred it to him, in 2017 to $75,690 last year. But he only paid his mom $100. What a deal. For him. Even though the property, shown here in a 2019 aerial photo courtesy the property appraiser’s office, is outside the urban development boundary and “awaiting specific zoning.”
As usual, Diaz de la Portilla did not want to talk to me, not even about the stolen tractor found on his nursery. In text, he said a thief “dumped it on my property.” So the thief just wanted a joy ride and then left it there? Maybe a vandal, then?
Only how did they get in the chain link fence?
When I asked, DLP said that no, he did not have cameras on the property. That’s going to make it a difficult crime to solve.
Unless there are cameras at the construction site.
Miami-Dade Police are still investigating and ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS (8477).
Joy ride? Cops seize stolen tractor on Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s property added by Ladra on
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