A weekend theft of a Thwaites 1 ton dumper was reported to us on Monday morning where we could see that it had moved from the theft site to approximately 3 miles away.
Our technology indicated that it was in the back of a vehicle or container so we dispatched a CanTrack Investigator to locate the machine. On arriving at the scene, we utilised our contacts within MPS to gain further local intelligence about the possible location by sharing our technology information with the MPS Officer. After a brief search, a long wheel based van was noticed with visibly lower suspension and running German number-plates.
German number-plates are a local tactic to avoid ANPR and the suspension would naturally be lower when laden with a dumper.
The van was registered as stolen a month prior and the marks to the rear of the van indicated that something dumper-sized had been driven into the van recently. All the visual evidence, along with our technology, indicated that the stolen machine was within the van so the Police kindly granted us forced access to the van whereby the stolen machine was successfully found and recovered by the police for forensic analysis.
