Episode 4 Thief Trackers


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Transcript


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Bag snatchers, pickpockets and street crime.

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According to the latest police figures,

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more than 3,500 incidents of theft

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are reported every day in the UK.

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He was the innocent victim of a scam that is all too common.

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I was angry.

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But what happens to our belongings when they're stolen?

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Thief Trackers show us who takes them and where they go...

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..hiding trackers inside desirable items

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like cameras, smartphones and bicycles

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to trace their every move.

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The thieves think they've got away with it,

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but we've got them under surveillance.

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Using undercover footage, CCTV and tracking technology,

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we'll get an insight into the criminal mind...

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..and uncover the unseen journey that our possessions take

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when they're stolen.

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Today, the undercover team are on the trail of a stolen laptop...

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..tracking the thief through the city streets.

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He's actually not much further ahead of us.

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Plus, crooks on the run try to outwit the eye in the sky...

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They separated, made off across open fields.

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..but didn't bank on the eagle-eyed kids on the ground.

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As I panned the camera round, I saw that a number of

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the children had arranged themselves into an arrow.

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The remarkable thing is how accurate they were.

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And cutting-edge technology helps trace a motorbike's true identity.

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The engine, the seat and the mirrors were from a different bike.

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This bike has been built by a thief.

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Would you trust a bike thief to build your bike? I wouldn't.

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Car theft across the UK has been reduced in the last ten years,

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mainly due to advances in technology,

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but theft FROM a vehicle is still a major problem.

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Many drivers leave their possessions in the car,

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and it's reported that across the UK

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over £3 billion worth of belongings are kept in vehicles overnight.

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Helping the Thief Trackers with our investigation

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is our specialist crime adviser, Alex Stewart.

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He was assigned to some of the toughest areas of London,

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both on patrol and as an undercover officer

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in his time on the force with the Metropolitan Police.

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From theft to drugs to violence crime,

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he's seen what life is like on the streets.

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We're all guilty of leaving our valuables in our car

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at one time or another -

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satnavs, mobile phones, even laptops,

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all creating a ready opportunity for thieves to target.

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Most car break-ins are committed by thieves

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who target a specific area,

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often a quiet residential street,

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breaking into two or three cars before moving on.

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Keeping tabs on the thieves

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is the Thief Trackers' undercover team

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who will be mounting a covert surveillance operation.

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For their safety, you won't see them, but you'll hear their voices.

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Keep your camera on these guys.

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Laptops are the number one item stolen from cars.

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So we're fitting one with a tracker, so if it's stolen,

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we can use the GPS tracking signal to follow where it goes

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and track down the thieves.

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The Thief Trackers' undercover team rig our car with hidden cameras

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to catch any unsuspecting thief in action.

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So, we're going to park the car up in a location in east London.

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It's an up-and-coming area,

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but it's still subject to very high levels of vehicle crime.

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In fact, the highest levels in London.

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So we're very confident that if we put the car in this location

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someone is going to break into it.

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The car is parked on a side street.

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This is an everyday situation,

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as people step away from their cars,

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leaving property inside thinking it's safe.

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It's something we all do.

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The laptop tracker is live.

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The team sit tight in a nearby vehicle.

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It's time to watch and wait.

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-This looks good.

-He's having a look.

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Just watching to see if anyone comes back, I think.

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He totally made a beeline for that car earlier.

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He really, really did.

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Not a lot happens during the day,

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but as darkness falls, it's a different story.

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CAR HANDLE THUDS

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He can't get in.

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But he appears to have walked away.

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There's been no further attempts,

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so, for now, the Thief Trackers sit tight.

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The next day, it's not long before there's some interest in the car.

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-OK, here we go.

-Someone walking past. Oh. He's seen it.

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Let's have a look. Have a look.

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-Is it the same guy?

-Yet, it is the same guy. Definitely.

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Our suspect is back and parked his car right next to ours.

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He's now on the phone. Seems he needs advice on what to do.

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Oh, that's an attempted theft right there.

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HE LAUGHS

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Sounds like we're wrong.

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Later on, we'll pick up his trail

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as our laptop goes deeper into the criminal underworld.

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There's definitely something going on down here.

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Once crooks have disappeared from the crime scene,

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it's hard to track them down.

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Catching criminals on the run is always a challenge for the police.

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But one of the most useful tracking tools they have

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is the helicopter units -

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the eye in the sky.

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The National Police Air Service use helicopters equipped with

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high-tech thermal imaging cameras which can pick up body heat.

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So working with their colleagues on the ground,

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the police can track criminals on the run, day or night,

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even if they hide in woodland,

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turning up the heat on the crooks.

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So, as a unit, we operate quite differently

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to the officers on the ground.

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We are quite often used for search tasks

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because we can cover a large area very quickly.

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You never know what you're going to be required for.

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It can very quickly change.

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You can turn up thinking our main role is to locate someone,

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search for someone and locate them,

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and it can quickly develop into an evidence gathering

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or a tactical command, a public reassurance role.

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We're observers, so we're monitoring things out on the ground,

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we're communicating with our colleagues using the police radios,

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we're operating specialist camera equipment,

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we're assisting the pilot with communications,

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monitoring various channels.

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Generally we'd operate with a pilot in the aircraft

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and two police officers, two tactical flight officers.

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The pilots themselves are not police officers -

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they're employed as civilian police staff,

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mostly ex-military.

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The important thing is, what objective do you want us to achieve?

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And that is to attend, search for, locate

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and then contain the persons and talk the ground units on.

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It was a normal day.

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We were just in the hangar,

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and a call came through as a matter of routine from our dispatch centre.

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PHONE RINGS

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There was a report of intruders in an industrial premises

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in Capel in Surrey.

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OK, bear with me. Job!

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They'd been attempting to steal property from the premises

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and a security guard who's employed had been confronted and threatened,

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hence why he called for police assistance.

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There were rough descriptions that the fact the suspects were male

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and roughly what direction they'd made off in.

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That was about it.

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I would've run out of the office to the aircraft with the pilot,

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we get the aircraft fired up,

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and then Rory will come out with all the details.

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Quite often, with jobs, when you go to the aircraft,

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you've got a limited amount of information.

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The tactical commander often stays in the hangar as long as possible

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so that you can get the most up-to-date information.

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Because it takes a couple of minutes to start the aircraft up,

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things may have changed - location, descriptions, etc.

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Time was of the essence,

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and we needed to get there very quickly,

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if nothing else, to contain it

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before we commenced our search with the ground units.

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Approaching the scene,

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we were predominantly trying to locate the suspects.

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We could see the brickworks from some distance away

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on the helicopter's camera,

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and there was almost an element of frustration at the start

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if you can't find what you're looking for.

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You can circle the target a number of times,

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but unless you immediately spot what you're looking for,

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it can be a bit... you realise that seconds count.

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There were no obvious suspects running away,

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driving away in order to track them.

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But that's when we got an update from the control room

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that a nearby resident had disturbed three males

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trying to break through the rear fence of his back garden.

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We identified where that resident lived

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and concentrated our search in that area.

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So, we were clearing the areas,

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and then it was an excellent spot by my colleague, Matt Kilpatrick,

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who was operating the camera on the day.

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Front seat role is all about assisting the pilot

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whilst we're on the way to the job.

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Once we're on task, it's for me to operate the camera

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based on Rory's direction.

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So Rory is speaking to the coppers on the ground,

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so our control room to their control room,

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obtaining all the information

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and identifying which areas are relevant for us to search.

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It was a very small heat source, but it was immediately clear to me

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that it could have been a person.

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So we move the aircraft over and managed to identify

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that it was two people sat in the hedge.

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They're using the thermal imaging camera,

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which picks up on heat sources.

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So just because you're hiding in the bushes,

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it doesn't mean you can't be seen.

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-RADIO:

-New information -

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we've got two persons hiding beneath a tree.

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The males soon realised, I think, that we were onto them.

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You could clearly see them on thermal imagery,

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and it's almost, "When's the penny going to drop that we can see you?"

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Because, obviously, we are not in a position to lean out

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and say, "We can see you."

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They separated, made off across open fields.

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-RADIO:

-Now splitting, trying to create their own luck.

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Then it was a case of, "Well, do we settle for one,

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"or do we try and juggle both?"

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I was following one of them on the camera and at that point,

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I'm very focused on the screen on the front of the aircraft,

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so I lose my awareness of where the second suspect has gone.

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I'm filming one, and Rory and Neil the pilot

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are keeping track on the other one out the window.

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It must have been a good 20 minutes we were monitoring them,

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trying to get the area contained and liaising with Surrey Police

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who were directing the ground units.

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There were lots of people out on the ground.

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You quite often see groups of people waving

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and trying to get your attention,

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but you assume it's because it's a bit of a novelty

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having a police helicopter overhead.

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The kids were waving, and it was only five, ten minutes,

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it could have been longer than,

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that my colleague, Matt, then noticed the kids forming the arrow.

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As I panned the camera round, I saw that a number of the people,

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a number of the children had arranged themselves into

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an arrow in the middle of this ploughed field.

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My initial reaction was, "What are they all doing lying down?"

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And then, it kind of dawned on me, the shape they were laid in.

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The remarkable thing is how accurate they were.

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When we searched the area, I think you see from the footage,

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that Matt was able to track the camera

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towards the woodland they were pointing to,

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and coincidentally, at that point,

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the suspect realised he'd been rumbled...

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..and made a break for it,

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so we were then able to track him for as long as necessary.

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And because it was such a vast, open rural area,

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we had to talk them in from surrounding roads.

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The first male had gone to ground beneath some bushes

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and was fairly confident we couldn't see him.

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-RADIO:

-In the bushes there, on the left.

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He wasn't going anywhere. Didn't want to break cover.

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Our colleagues were able to go to his location

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and detain him straightaway.

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-RADIO:

-The male is in custody. Good work.

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The second suspect, who the Capel kids had pointed towards,

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decided that he wanted to run and run and run.

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So we were able to track him using the camera...

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-RADIO:

-You've got visual.

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..to a nearby location

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where officers were on standby with a marked vehicle,

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and they were able to detain him without issue.

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After both suspects had been detained, we landed in the field,

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partly to thank the children

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and partly to work out what it was they were doing there.

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It turned out they were part of an organised Easter egg hunt.

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I get the impression that the first attempts of waving were

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"Hi, look at us! We're trying to help you!"

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We obviously didn't take the hint,

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and they thought, "How else can we make it a bit more obvious?"

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And then we got the message second time round.

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It's nice to see their reaction and give them a positive message

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about how you can engage in a positive way with the police.

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Somebody hit the nail on the head and said

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it was like an episode of Scooby-Doo,

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where the suspects are often heard to say,

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"If it wasn't for those pesky kids."

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I think that's very apt.

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We're returning to our covert surveillance operation

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with the Thief Trackers undercover team.

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Earlier, we rigged a car with hidden cameras

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and left a laptop on view inside.

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As the team watched nearby, this guy tried to force the window.

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When he had no luck, he made a more drastic move...

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..driving off with our laptop,

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unaware the team are following him

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thanks to the GPS signal from the tracker inside.

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The undercover team are joined by our crime advisor,

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Alex Stewart, and together they pick up the thief's trail.

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So we need to go left here.

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Then it's going to be your second road on the right.

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All right, go straight down here.

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He's taking this route. When you get to the end, he's gone left.

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From the map, it looks like this joins up with West Ham Lane.

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Oh. Right, we've reached a dead end.

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So we're going to have to stop and work out what's happened.

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All right, so we've got this single yellow line here

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and a load of parking bays up there.

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So given that this is a dead end,

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I think what's happened is he must have parked his vehicle up somewhere

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and then continued on foot to one of the bus stops

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that we've got up here.

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We're going to need to get back into the vehicle,

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check on what the tracker is doing

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and see if we can get behind them again.

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So just there on the left is the cul-de-sac that we ended up in.

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Given the speed with which the device is now moving,

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I suspect he's on a bus.

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So you're going to be taking this exit here.

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-He's on West Ham Lane heading northbound.

-This first exit here?

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Yeah. This exit here.

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You need to keep going straight in this direction.

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Then when we get to this next junction,

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-I want you bearing right.

-Fine.

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At this junction here, I need you to go left.

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So once we've gone down a right here,

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he's actually not that much further ahead of us.

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What we're looking for is a road on our right-hand side.

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Then, after that, there's a number of buildings.

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I think he's probably gone to ground in one of those.

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So we've come a long distance here. We're now in Walthamstow.

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Just across this main road here is Walthamstow Magistrates' Court.

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This guy is brazen.

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He's stolen a laptop and come all the way north

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and is now opposite a court that he would go to if he got captured.

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This large building is the location of the laptop.

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We know that the laptop is in there at the moment.

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Obviously it may be our suspect who's got it,

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it may be somebody else.

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It may have changed hands at this point.

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What we need to do now is get out of here before we attract any

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attention to ourselves.

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We must stake out this location and wait for the laptop to move again.

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The signal doesn't move for several hours.

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During the night shift, the tracker springs into life.

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The Thief Trackers are hot on the trail.

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The team follow the tracking signal...

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..leading them to a house four miles away.

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They stake out the house, but the signal doesn't move,

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so they watch and wait.

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Overnight, the signal from the laptop disappears.

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It's possible that the tracker has been discovered and destroyed.

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With no sign of the thief or his car, the team decide to

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return to the area where the laptop was stolen to try and find him.

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That looks like the car.

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This looks like the thief's car.

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I think it's two numberplates.

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The car has false numberplates to conceal its true identity.

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That second numberplate, that could be...

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That could be a fake one on top, it could be a clone.

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Look at these guys.

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There's definitely something going on down here.

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I think we should leave.

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The undercover team spent two weeks staking out this area.

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There was no sign of the thief, even though his car was still here

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and there were plenty of other activities going on.

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What they did notice was that his vehicle was bearing false plates.

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They were stuck over to conceal what was underneath.

0:21:560:21:59

There is no good reason for a vehicle

0:21:590:22:01

to conceal its true identity.

0:22:010:22:04

With the tracker signal having gone dead and no sign of the thief,

0:22:040:22:07

the undercover team sadly had to call it a day.

0:22:070:22:10

We couldn't find the thief, but maybe the police can.

0:22:100:22:14

We're more than happy for them to have

0:22:140:22:15

a look at our unblurred footage of the laptop snatcher in action.

0:22:150:22:19

Motorbike theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the UK,

0:22:250:22:30

up 44% in the last few years.

0:22:300:22:32

Highly organised gangs are stealing motorcycles to sell them on

0:22:320:22:35

or strip down for parts,

0:22:350:22:37

even putting the stolen parts together in illegal chop shops

0:22:370:22:40

to make a different bike altogether.

0:22:400:22:43

But cutting-edge technology is being used

0:22:430:22:45

to fight back against the thieves.

0:22:450:22:48

A security scheme known as MASTER -

0:22:480:22:50

the Motorcycle And Scooter Tagged Equipment Register -

0:22:500:22:53

was launched with the backing of the police.

0:22:530:22:56

Individual parts of a motorbike are now marked using ultraviolet etching

0:22:560:23:01

and radio frequency identity tags.

0:23:010:23:03

This means every part of a motorbike contains a unique code,

0:23:030:23:07

which can track it back to the legal owner

0:23:070:23:10

to hopefully clamp down on thieves selling bikes made from

0:23:100:23:13

stolen parts to unsuspecting innocent victims.

0:23:130:23:16

I've always wanted an R6. It was a dream bike of mine.

0:23:190:23:22

I'd found the bike on Gumtree, a Gumtree app.

0:23:270:23:30

I'd messaged the bloke, travelled down on the weekend, saw the bike.

0:23:300:23:33

I took it out for a test drive.

0:23:330:23:35

The paperwork seemed legit, the bike seemed legit.

0:23:350:23:38

I purchased it there and then and brought it back home.

0:23:380:23:41

It was the perfect bike for me at the time.

0:23:500:23:52

It was the one I've always wanted, so I was lucky to get it first time.

0:23:530:23:57

So I thought.

0:23:570:23:58

I went to Brands Hatch racetrack in October 2015.

0:24:020:24:06

I went to watch British Superbikes racing.

0:24:060:24:08

I took the girlfriend with me. It was a nice day out.

0:24:080:24:10

I first found out there was something wrong with the bike

0:24:100:24:13

at the track.

0:24:130:24:14

Hello.

0:24:140:24:15

'I got a phone call from my insurance company.'

0:24:150:24:17

They told me to go back to my bike as they knew I was at Brands Hatch.

0:24:170:24:20

I was kind of confused at the time. I didn't know what was going on.

0:24:200:24:23

OK, I'll be there in a minute.

0:24:230:24:24

'I've gone back to the bike, it's been pulled forward.'

0:24:240:24:26

The police are around it, Datatag are around the bike as well.

0:24:260:24:30

I honestly had no idea what was going on at the time.

0:24:300:24:33

The security company who run the nationwide bike tagging scheme

0:24:340:24:38

were scanning for stolen bikes and parts.

0:24:380:24:40

We came across Kurt's bike and scanned it as a matter of course.

0:24:400:24:43

There was no outward identifiers, as I say,

0:24:430:24:45

it had got the MASTER scheme on,

0:24:450:24:48

but it was in the vulnerable age range of bikes, so 2005 to 2010.

0:24:480:24:54

Bikes manufactured in this period didn't have security markings

0:24:540:24:57

on them, which is why they're more likely to be stolen,

0:24:570:25:00

and which is why Kurt's bike set alarm bells ringing.

0:25:000:25:03

The police managed to contact Kurt, who was with his girlfriend

0:25:040:25:07

watching the racing at Brands Hatch, and ruined his day, really.

0:25:070:25:12

The police told me that the bike had stolen parts on it -

0:25:120:25:15

the engine, the seat and the mirrors itself were from a different bike.

0:25:150:25:20

Technology allowed us to track those parts back to

0:25:220:25:26

an original stolen Yamaha R6,

0:25:260:25:28

which had been the donor bike for the clone bike that Kurt

0:25:280:25:32

ended up buying, so when he came in and bought his motorcycle,

0:25:320:25:35

he was actually buying two bikes - one stolen, one not.

0:25:350:25:39

Unfortunately, when the investigations came to an end,

0:25:390:25:42

it transpired that the only thing that poor, old Kurt actually owned

0:25:420:25:45

was a frame.

0:25:450:25:47

I was angry. I didn't know what to say.

0:25:470:25:50

I had no idea of the problem at the time. I had no...

0:25:500:25:54

I was completely unaware.

0:25:540:25:56

Never knew anything like this was going to happen.

0:25:560:25:58

I was told by the police that I could take the bike,

0:25:580:26:01

but if I signed a declaration, I couldn't change any parts on it,

0:26:010:26:05

I couldn't sell it and I couldn't break it.

0:26:050:26:07

I was under investigation from the police,

0:26:070:26:10

I could have been fined, sentenced, I don't know.

0:26:100:26:14

He was genuinely, genuinely shocked.

0:26:140:26:16

You know, his first big bike, he'd saved up hard to buy it,

0:26:160:26:20

he was very proud of it.

0:26:200:26:22

You know, everybody recognised very quickly that

0:26:220:26:25

he was the innocent victim of a scam and a scam that is all too common.

0:26:250:26:30

Owning a stolen bike had knock-on effects.

0:26:330:26:37

I was worried, cos I had to ride it back.

0:26:370:26:39

I didn't know if anything was going to go wrong,

0:26:390:26:41

whether it was going to fail, whether it was going to fall apart.

0:26:410:26:44

I had the girlfriend on the back, which was worse.

0:26:440:26:46

The risk was higher.

0:26:460:26:48

This bike had been built by a thief.

0:26:480:26:50

He was quite worried that potentially

0:26:500:26:52

he and his girlfriend were riding home on a deathtrap.

0:26:520:26:55

When these bikes are put together as cloned vehicles,

0:26:550:26:57

the people building them are not mechanics, they're bike thieves.

0:26:570:27:02

You know, would you trust a bike thief to build your bike?

0:27:020:27:05

Kurt was left in limbo while the investigation carried on.

0:27:050:27:07

It was several weeks before the police

0:27:070:27:09

and insurance companies came to a decision.

0:27:090:27:12

I was in contact with the police for possibly five to six weeks,

0:27:120:27:15

maybe longer, constantly e-mailing each other.

0:27:150:27:18

I had a police officer come round to check the bike itself.

0:27:180:27:21

It was quickly established that he was innocent,

0:27:210:27:23

he had bought it in good faith, he'd done as much as he could,

0:27:230:27:26

reasonably, to check that it was stolen.

0:27:260:27:29

Kurt kept his pride and joy, but it's never felt quite the same.

0:27:290:27:33

I was happy when I got told I could keep the bike,

0:27:330:27:35

but I wasn't 100% with the bike itself in the end.

0:27:350:27:39

I was more worried about the safety of it.

0:27:390:27:44

I've ridden it three times over the last five months.

0:27:440:27:46

I haven't wanted to ride it as much. The love's gone.

0:27:460:27:49

I feel unsafe sometimes on it. Insecure.

0:27:490:27:52

The experience has definitely ruined that bike for me.

0:27:540:27:57

I do want another bike, I do love bikes, but the R6 is now ruined.

0:27:570:28:00

I think Kurt's experience does highlight to anybody looking

0:28:030:28:06

to buy a used bike that it is a bit of a minefield.

0:28:060:28:09

You need to check everything you possibly can -

0:28:090:28:12

engine number, frame number, registration number, HPI check,

0:28:120:28:15

and make sure they all match.

0:28:150:28:17

If they don't, walk away.

0:28:170:28:18

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