Tackling plant theft

TRACKER is playing a key role in the Metropolitan Police’s new National Plant Intelligence Unit (NPIU), which aims to crackdown on plant theft by helping locate and recover stolen plant equipment as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

The new unit is operated by three officers based at the Metropolitan Police’s stolen vehicle unit at Chalk Farm in North London and is overseen by DC Ian Elliott. The team checks what has been stolen and can quickly identify hot spots across the UK. By working directly with Insurance companies and plant hirers, the NPIU can quickly gather intelligence which is used alongside tracking technology to locate stolen plant equipment.

“An estimated £50million to £70million worth of plant and agricultural machinery is stolen in the UK annually and currently only 5% of those are recovered,” explains Stuart Chapman, Police Liaison Officer at TRACKER. “We are delighted to be working with the National Plant Intelligence Unit and believe TRACKER will play a vital role in increasing the recovery rate of plant equipment. This partnership continues our successful work with the UK’s fifty two police forces.”

TRACKER stolen vehicle recovery systems work like an electronic homing device and currently help to recover an average of £2million worth of stolen vehicles each month. The system places a covert transmitter on the owner’s vehicle, providing no visible evidence for the thief to suspect any security device. When a vehicle is stolen, the owner reports the theft to TRACKER HQ and the police who then activate the transmitter to emit a silent radio signal. The silent signal can now be traced by any UK police force, directing them to the exact location of the stolen vehicle.

DC Ian Elliott who leads the National Plant Intelligence Unit comments, “It still amazes me that plant equipment is manufactured without a unique ignition key, as without this, it is relatively easy to steal a £60k digger. Plant tends to be stolen to order and often involves highly organised criminal groups, operating internationally, to move stolen machinery out of the UK and into countries such as Poland.

“The loss of plant equipment can have a severe impact on businesses, leading to lost time and productivity, not to mention the expense of replacing the stolen vehicle. Our partnership with TRACKER plays an instrumental role in cracking down on plant theft and therefore protecting businesses’ assets. In addition, because TRACKER’s technology uses Very High Frequency (VHF), it means the signal is a lot harder to jam with state of the art jamming devices. To date the unit has so far recovered £500,000 worth of equipment thanks to the companies we work closely with.”