Episode 7 Thief Trackers

According to police figures, more than 3,500 theft incidents

are reported every day in the UK.

I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it was that bad.

But have you ever wondered

what happens to our belongings when they're stolen?

Thief Trackers tells the story of where they go.

We're hiding satellite-tracking devices

inside a range of desirable everyday items,

like cameras, smartphones and bicycles,

to trace the looters' footsteps.

The thieves may think they've got away with it,

but we are tracking their every move.

With secret filming, CCTV and police-raid footage,

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

-MAN:

-Honestly, I don't know!

..and uncover the unseen journey

that our treasured possessions take when they're stolen.

Today, the issue of car break-ins.

We track an opportunist thief...

The car window's open just a small amount,

it's broad daylight, he's a very confident thief.

..who's unaware that the stolen item is fitted with a tracking device.

Plus officers come face-to-face with the scariest stolen tractor

on the rampage in West Yorkshire!

This guy was basically trapped into a corner

and was fighting his way out.

It was very unnerving, yeah.

You get a ten-tonne machine coming towards you.

And the businessman's tracker trap

set to catch a gang of chocolate bandits!

It's a great way of securing what you've got.

They're going to come in if they want to come in,

you might as well catch 'em.

By the end of 2014, there were almost 30 million cars on the UK's roads -

we're certainly a nation of car lovers.

But car crime is an ever-present danger,

and, in the same year, there were more than 350,000 incidents,

including car break-ins and vehicle robberies.

One victim of car crime is Sheena from Hertfordshire,

whose car was broken into in February 2015.

Her 28-year-old son, Luke, had died,

and while Sheena was visiting his graveside,

her bag was stolen from her car.

My son had died a few weeks previously

and it was the first opportunity I'd had

to go back and to take some flowers.

As we were walking back to the car,

I could hear a car alarm going and I said to my daughter,

"That's my car alarm." And we ran then out of the cemetery

and I could see that the window was smashed.

And I knew that they'd taken my bag.

And my son's toy was in the bag and it was horrendous.

The toy soldier was one of a set that he'd had as a little boy,

there were 24, he used to call them his boys,

and this was the only that had survived.

And I used to say to him,

"One of these days, I'm bringing the toy back to you

"and you can look after it."

And he said, "No, you keep it, Mum, because you'll keep it safe."

And then I couldn't, because somebody stole it.

Normally, I wouldn't leave my bag on the seat.

I just got out of the car and didn't think to move the bag.

And would have thought that, in a cemetery car park,

it would have been fairly safe.

The biggest part of my bag being taken was Luke's toy.

It's...it's worth nothing, it cost nothing,

it's a tiny two-inch wooden soldier.

I can't replace that.

That was the last remaining thing that I had

to connect me to him and that's gone!

Coming so soon after the death of her son,

Sheena's experience of car crime hit her hard.

But, fortunately, there is some good news.

A couple of weeks ago, when I returned home from work,

I'd had a call from the police in King's Lynn

to say that they had found my bag with Luke's toy intact.

This is the tiny, tiny, insignificant-to-anybody-else toy,

but it means a huge lot to me,

cos I'm close to Luke when I have this toy.

The toy doesn't go out of my house any more,

it sits by my bedside table, next to a photograph of Luke,

where it's safe and I can see it every day.

A bag stolen in Hertfordshire and finally traced in King's Lynn?

That's quite a trek. Now, car break-ins happen all over the UK,

but London is the national hot spot.

More than 82,000 incidents

were recorded by the Metropolitan Police in 2014.

Former Metropolitan Police inspector, Keith Farquharson,

is helping us with our investigation.

We're running this scenario in the London borough of Newham.

This borough has the highest incidence of car crime

in the whole of London,

currently running at 3,500 crimes in the year 2014-2015.

We're also looking at a street with a high incidence of car crime.

We aren't planning to have the actual car stolen,

we're keen to find out where an item might go

once it's stolen from our car.

We're using a second-hand games console as bait,

but other items that rank high in incidences of car theft

are exterior fittings such as wiper blades, car badges and aerials.

So far in the series,

we've looked at the way thieves operate.

For instance, snatching possessions like bags or phones

when victims least expect it.

This time, we're putting out a car that's deliberately laden with items

to see how thieves would react to a vehicle parked by an unwise consumer.

Alongside our games console,

we'll leave a few other items including a smartphone.

Electrical items are among the top three items stolen from vehicles.

Should any of our items be stolen, we'll trace their journeys

with the help of GPS tracking devices like this.

The basis of that technology

is this device can make range measurements from here

to satellites orbiting in space,

and those satellites might be 20,000km away.

That gives you the ability to plot that position on a map,

display it on a computer, so you'll know where the device is.

We've parked our car in position in Newham.

According to police.uk,

this London borough has a very high incidence of car crime.

Our crew will monitor the items from another vehicle parked nearby.

What kind of thieves will they attract?

Thieves often use the cover of darkness.

Sure enough, it isn't long

before our vehicle and its contents attract some interest.

A group of men start to scope out the car and take a good look inside.

The group stay just out of shot.

Then one of them comes over for a closer look.

But it seems he's not brazen enough to break in.

But what about this guy?

He comes close to the car for a really good look.

Then he walks off as well.

It's possible that they think a car full of gadgets

may be too good to be true.

The group has been here for a while now,

then another character arrives.

He seems to be pointing out the shop's CCTV cameras to the other men

and that's made them more wary of our car.

These men seem to think our laden vehicle is a police trap,

so it's a little too hot for these lads.

A few days later, we tried again some distance away...

and, eventually, this is what happened.

CAMERA WHIRS

A young lad is loitering near the car.

He's on the phone to someone,

but it definitely seems like the car has caught his eye.

Maybe he's sizing it up?

He wanders off, but then he returns with an accomplice.

They seem to be waiting until the coast is completely clear.

He takes the phone from the dashboard before calmly walking away.

This thief is an opportunist

who's taken advantage of the gap in the window and gone for it.

Clearly, not so committed a thief as to smash the window,

but he has the idea that the phone is valuable enough to steal.

Later, we follow the trail of the stolen smartphone

as it weaves its way across East London.

The tracking data shows that the phone

ended up in a house in Ham Park Road.

Opportunist thieves will often take a moment to seize our property,

hoping to make a few pounds from a quick sale.

But organised crime gangs look for higher rewards.

Their typical targets include building sites.

In the construction industry, around £70 million worth

of heavy plant machinery is stolen each year.

Vehicles like this telescopic handler

cost between £10,000 and more than £100,000 apiece.

Often left on-site and unattended, they are frequently targeted.

Tracking companies are doing their utmost

to combat this kind of heavy-duty hijacking.

Specifically, for a tele-handler,

these are really quite high value machines and they tend to be stolen

by serious organised criminal gangs.

And those kind of people will steal them,

literally, to transport and to sell.

If you wanted to take £100,000 in cash or drugs

across borders and into another country,

you've got a serious challenge on your hands,

and the penalties for doing so would be huge.

If, however, you want to do that and you steal the machine locally,

you are effectively taking £100,000 over to the end destination

where you will readily be able to turn it back into cash.

A brazen example of this

occurred in the West Yorkshire town of Castleford in 2011.

Peter's tracking company swung into action,

following a phone call from one of his clients.

He rang us up and was actually just asking about

some of the units on his tracking software.

He incidentally mentioned to me that he'd had a theft that day.

Obviously, we were hoping he had a tracking system on there,

he said it didn't.

While we were checking the locations of machines on his list

and getting live locations, he said, "Oh, that's weird,

"that's not meant to be in that location. What can that be?"

And he sort of hung up the phone very promptly

and rang us back five minutes later and went,

"It's got a tracking system on it."

It's from a job that we had previously,

we didn't take the tracking system off.

We immediately called the head of our investigations team,

a chap called John Mussett.

I just called him up and said, "Get in the car now,

"we'll give you more details en route."

That's right, there's been a scary ten-tonne machine

on the loose in West Yorkshire for nearly three days

and the owners have only just noticed!

Peter's colleague, John, quickly set off in pursuit.

The tele-handler was somewhere near Castleford

and John had to get there fast to pinpoint the signal and location.

So we're on our way up to Castleford, travelling up the A1.

The tracking circle was showing up

near to a place called Fairburn Ings, which is a nature reserve,

but also covering part of Castleford town centre.

I found it using the rangefinder,

which is a directional signal that the unit gives out.

So, basically, follow the loudest noise

and eventually it will take you to the machine.

So, on this occasion, it took us to a triangular piece of wasteland

at the side of the railway line,

where I could see the roof of the tele-handler

hidden amongst the trees.

The vehicle had been hidden from view,

a standard tactic used by organised criminals.

Because the machine had been missing for several days at this point,

it had obviously been left there to cool off.

Thieves will leave a machine to cool off,

because they know that a lot of these high-value assets

do have trackers and they don't want to be caught red-handed with them.

So they will leave them somewhere out of the way,

probably where the public don't have an easy view of the machine,

just to cool off, and they'll go back after a couple of days later.

If the machine is still there,

they will assume there is no tracker fitted and move it.

Tracking the machine was relatively easy.

However, retrieving the tele-handler turned out to be anything but.

At the point that I'd arrived and found the machine,

unbeknownst to me initially,

one of the thieves was in there about to move it.

So, when I looked again into the scrubland,

the machine was actually moving in amongst the trees.

John dialled 999 and alerted the police.

I was really pumped up at that point,

cos I knew that we were going to end with some kind of a pursuit.

We've had a few pursuits over the time,

and whenever that happens, two things cross our minds.

A, it's an unusual situation and it is, I'll be honest,

it's a bit exciting when these things happen.

But also with the responsibility for our investigators on the ground,

we are obviously a little bit concerned.

So, there's a tele-handler chugging along at 15mph

through the streets of Castleford.

John kept the police updated throughout his frustrating journey.

H wasn't aware I was following him at that point,

I was several vehicles back.

It was awkward, because he was going so slowly

and there was a lot of traffic, so I had to keep turning into side roads

to avoid getting too close behind him.

But, eventually, after probably five minutes or so,

we'd ended up with two panda cars behind me

and then a couple of other marked vehicles, panda cars,

coming in the opposite direction.

Now, at this point, he became aware that something was amiss,

I believe that the police were actually on to him.

The chase had been on for several miles now

and had reached Sheepwalk Lane,

where the thief tried a manoeuvre to lose the police.

He came to a road junction, he turned left,

and then did another left turn into what transpired was a cul-de-sac.

Ah, yes, I remember it well.

But the crook's error almost had disastrous consequences for John.

This is the cul-de-sac that the tele-handler turned down.

I think probably the thief didn't realise it was a cul-de-sac

when he turned into it.

I got halfway down and realised that it was a cul-de-sac myself,

so I pulled over onto the left-hand side,

onto the footpath, to keep out of the way.

The two panda cars went past me towards the tele-handler,

but when he got to the top of the cul-de-sac,

he decided he wasn't stopping.

So he did a three-point turn with the machine

and came back towards us.

The thief wasn't going to give up easily,

he knew this machine could do a lot of damage.

This guy was basically trapped into a corner

and was fighting his way out.

And he had something much more powerful

than anyone else involved in that.

Whether it was police cars or my cars,

they'll just go straight through the police cars

as if they weren't there.

So the two panda cars reversed past me...at speed.

And then I had to reverse

and luckily one of the other patrol cars

that was on the main road behind us

had stopped all the traffic so we could get out of the way

to let the tele-handler get out of the cul-de-sac.

It was very unnerving, yeah.

You get a ten-tonne machine kind of coming towards you

and you're stuck with your reverse gear hoping that the two patrol cars

that were behind me were going to keep moving.

At the wheel of a slow, heavy-duty loader,

there was no way the crook could outrun the police.

But they had no idea the lengths this thief would go to

in order to evade capture.

Yeah, he travelled a few hundred yards out of the houses

and then did a right turn

and crashed straight through this hawthorn hedge.

To watch that, it was impressive, he didn't slow down at all,

and obviously the weight of that machine, about ten tonnes,

just took him straight through the hedge.

And off he went, straight through the crop.

He was pretty intent on not stopping and surrendering to the police,

even though there were, by that time,

at least six marked police vehicles near to him.

The tele-handler thief clearly worked on the principle

that it was his way or the highway!

But an imminent collision with the M62 motorway

brought his dreams of a smart getaway to a standstill.

SIREN WAILS

The officers came into the field. At this point,

the thief had stopped in the middle of the field,

but wouldn't get out of the tele-handler.

So they ended up tasering him in the cab and he fell out of the cab.

He got up, ran at the police officers,

so they had to taser him a second time.

That subdued him and he was hand-cuffed and arrested.

Without a tracking system, we would never have seen this again

unless it was a pure coincidental find.

We just wouldn't even know where to look.

It was a cracking result, it was a good track,

it was an interesting pursuit with the police,

and it was a good result at the end,

the customer got his machine back with minimal damage,

and also we got the offender arrested.

No doubt the residents of Castleford were extremely relieved

to have this fearsome ten-tonne vehicle off their streets.

Earlier, we considered the high incidence of car crime -

350,000 each year in the UK, including car break-ins.

So where do those items go when they're stolen?

To find out, we fitted a GPS tracker into a games console,

also a smartphone.

We put them in a car

in a London neighbourhood with a high crime rate.

After two attempts in different locations,

it was the phone that was stolen.

The car window was open just a small amount -

just enough for him to get his hand through.

It's broad daylight, he's a very confident thief.

So what has happened to our stolen phone?

Keith is on the case.

The thief struck at 1.50pm.

The data was a little slow to start reporting.

However, it gradually came online over the next 12 hours

and finally, at 4am, it showed the item moving north.

But the thief didn't get far.

No more than a few streets away,

around five minutes from where the phone was stolen.

The tracking data shows that the phone ended up

in a house in Ham Park Road

That's where it stayed - the signal didn't move from that point onwards.

But pinpointing the exact location isn't straightforward.

With GPS tracking data, it's not always possible

to be able to narrow it down by one house.

We would then have to resort to more traditional methods -

a leaflet drop, intelligence,

or hopefully a Crimestoppers phone call -

to indicate where the phone may have gone to.

So we turned to more traditional tracking methods.

We sent leaflets to some of the houses

to see if anyone had recently bought a second-hand smartphone.

We had no response.

Then, a day after our leaflet drop,

the tracker signal stopped.

It's very likely that our inquiries spooked whoever has the phone.

They discovered the tracker and destroyed it.

Being such a short distance away from where the phone was stolen,

it's highly likely that the thief lives on the street,

so it's not surprising we didn't hear from anyone!

It's a stark warning to us all

that if we're unwise enough to leave our valuables on view for all to see,

they will most likely be stolen.

So we know where the phone went,

and the authorities are more than welcome to take a closer look

at our surveillance footage of the phone snatcher in action.

Thieves will make off with anything that isn't screwed down.

Everything from our personal possessions

to our business commodities.

So it's no surprise that companies are turning to modern technology

in the fight against crime.

Our next story takes place in Mansfield,

a market town 15 miles north of Nottingham, close to the M1 motorway.

It's the location of a robbery from a hard-working businessman

that left a bad taste in the mouth.

It's gutting. You work hard, you put as much time and effort

into growing the business as you can

and then somebody just comes and takes everything!

Meet Andrew Widdowson, Mansfield's very own Willy Wonka.

His particular chocolate factory is a warehouse chock-a-block with

vending machines and all the treats you'd need to fill them.

We're a vending business, we fill and clean the machines,

take the cash, etc, that's part of the business.

We're also wholesale, so we wholesale vending ingredients

and all the associated products with those.

But all these goodies makes Andrew's warehouse

a prime target for organised crime.

We've had three break-ins over the last 12 months.

The first break-in, crow-barred open the doors,

they smashed machines that were in here,

there's nothing in them, but they broke into them anyway.

Absolutely wiped out this place, it was empty.

They took everything.

The second break-in, they were disturbed, so I was called.

I came here in the middle of the night, there was a van in this unit

loaded up with stock, it was a stolen van which they'd abandoned.

So why would thieves be interested in fizzy drinks and confectionery?

The stock that people are interested in is the branded products -

we have chocolate bars that are branded,

we have cans of pop, bottles that are branded,

crisps that are branded.

That's the sort of thing people can easily sell on.

The consequences arising from the robbery

could have been serious for Andrew and his team.

It's gutting, it can take a small business down,

and that can take 16 families with it. That's a big impact

And break-ins have more than just a financial effect on all involved.

It did make you feel really unsafe with the amount of break-ins

we've had to know that people have been in,

they've seen what you've got,

they've been looking at your personal photos

that you might have on your walls,

so they know what your family looks like,

it makes you feel angry as well

because they've been allowed to do it that many times.

The police, they've not got the resources to sit outside all night.

Nobody has the resources to do that,

so you've got to find a way of making sure that you can

catch these guys and that eventually it will stop happening.

Andrew wanted results - the prevention stage was over!

You can spend all the money you like putting in security measures,

and these guys just don't care, they will smash their way past it.

So it was a case of let's not put any more obstacles in the way,

but let's find some way of catching them.

Hence I decided to buy a tracking device.

Trackers are such small devices nowadays, we can very easily hide

a tracker inside a box of confectionary.

It's very simple, very covert,

and people will just not know they're taking it.

Like many tracking systems,

this one sends signals to pin-point its location

and has a battery that can last for several weeks, depending on usage.

So you know, even if they take it

and the police don't get it straight away, you might get it the next day.

You might get it two days later, you might get it in three weeks,

it doesn't matter - it will be there until it gets recovered.

The question was, where to hide the tracker?

We're looking for boxes that we can easily just slightly pop

and slip it in covertly. The best one of those

we always found was the Kit-Kat Chunky.

It's a good piece of stock that people will want to steal

and not only that, you can just squeeze the box

and place it inside - nobody's any the wiser.

Until someone tries to have a sneaky nibble!

And if I move it from here, to here,

the tracker's just told us that we've done that.

It knows exactly where it is and where it moves.

What a clever tracker!

So it was just a case of sitting and waiting till it happened.

I'm a pessimist by nature, so I know,

if it's happened once, it's going to happen again.

Sure enough, it did!

On the night of the 18th of December 2014,

the thieves crow-barred open the shutter door for the third time

and helped themselves, like taking candy from a baby.

I got a phone call early that morning from the guy who opens up.

He said we'd been broken into,

so he contacted the police, I come straight down to work.

I opened the door, walked in,

there was pallets in the middle of the warehouse,

there was boxes ripped open, scattered everywhere,

it was empty, they just... From seeing it the previous night,

from leaving at five o'clock to coming in early that morning,

it's like you were walking into a different place.

It proved to be a costly robbery.

The items that were taken were valued at around £3,000.

The total amount of damage

was estimated to be in the region of £10,000.

This was the moment Andrew had been waiting for -

a chance to catch the thieves with their hands in the sweetie jar!

I quickly flipped out my laptop, logged on.

The tracker left the units here at about two o'clock in the morning.

We know exactly what route they took,

even how fast they were moving.

The tracking data showed the chocolate snatchers had driven

more than 60 miles south, taking their bounty to Walsall.

Thinking they'd got away with this "wholenut heist",

the Bournville burglars hadn't bargained

for Andrew's tenacious tracker!

The tracker was quite clearly in the West Midlands at an address.

I subsequently made a phone call - 999 -

and informed the police where it was

and it was passed on to West Midlands Police.

Initially the police thought the tracker

and the stolen chocs were still on the road.

They were saying to me, "What vehicle are we looking for?"

I was saying, "You're not looking for a vehicle,

"you're looking for something inside the vehicle."

I gave them access to my tracking panel

so they can go on and look where this was

so they had full access to watch this stock moving around, live.

Using Andrew's tracking data, the police pinpointed the location

of the stolen box of treats to a wholesalers in Walsall and swooped!

And that led to the arrest of three suspects as well,

so the tracking device in this case was crucial to everything.

Unfortunately, four members of the chocolate-bar gang,

captured here on the wholesaler's CCTV, managed to escape.

The fourth one is very interesting because one of his children,

there's a child there that's about three years old,

and he's took that child with him to actually sell stolen goods.

Unbelievable! That's "bring your child to work day"

taken to a whole different level!

Thankfully, Andrew recovered his stock.

He continues to use the tracker and has even bought some more.

Anybody that's wanting to catch somebody or has had problems before,

I'd recommend doing it.

Take a leaf out of this gentleman's book, research tracking devices

and consider it, implementing them in your own businesses.

Since this has happened, there's been very little around Mansfield

in terms of break-ins, particularly on this business park,

it's dropped completely,

this was a business that did get broken into regularly.

Since it's happened, I don't think there's been another instance.

Nice work, Andrew. Go on - have a break!