A combination of tracking technology, detective work and collaborative effort has seen a UK company recover a highly valuable total station that had been stolen and transported to another country.
Surveyors from UK firm Survey Solutions were working in a quiet street in East London when thieves stole the Trimble S5. The surveyors were working just 50 metres away at the time, demonstrating how brazen the thieves were.
Once the theft was discovered, Survey Solutions called the police. Fortunately, the company protects its devices with Trimble’s Sentinel real-time tracking solution, and thereby was able to track the total station to a nearby block of flats. Yet despite police efforts, it could not be determined in which flat the stolen device was located. The trail had gone cold.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Three weeks later, the total station’s tracking signal was detected again, but this time emanating from Warsaw, Poland. Through monitoring of the signal, it soon became clear that it was being used for regular survey work in the city.
Survey Solutions consulted the UK’s The Survey Association (TSA) and was connected with a security solutions company called DeterTech, which works closely with TSA. DeterTech was given full details of the stolen instrument, and then liaised with a UK police taskforce that specialises in the organised theft of construction and agricultural equipment. The taskforce then contacted the police in Poland, who successfully recovered the total station.
“Our company has experienced instrument theft in the past and we have several cases currently under investigation,” said Survey Solutions’ Survey Manager, Reece Maycey.
“However, this time, our efforts have led to a successful outcome and the experience of dealing with the relevant parties in the recovery of the instrument have been extremely positive starting with a receptive response from the local police through to the help we’ve received from TSA, DeterTech and the UK Police Task Force that deals with construction and agricultural equipment theft.”
TSA developed a professional relationship with DeterTech in 2018 to find ways to deter and combat theft, and also recently held an open forum on equipment theft that featured a presentation by Superintendent Andy Huddleston from the UK police’s National Construction & Agriculture Theft Team.
TSA’s website has advice on how to prevent and deter equipment theft.
