Episode 1 Thief Trackers

More than 3,500 incidents of theft are reported every day in the UK.

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

Thief Trackers shows how they're taken

and where they go...

Excuse me, mate. Excuse me.

..hiding trackers inside items like cameras,

smartphones and bicycles to trace the thieves' every move.

There he is. There he is. There he is. There he is.

The crooks think they've got away with it,

but we've got them under surveillance.

Using undercover footage, CCTV and tracking technology,

we'll uncover the unseen journey our belongings take when they're stolen.

And we'll shine a light on how easy we make it for thieves

to plunder our prized possessions.

Today, the thief trackers are on the trail of a laptop stolen in broad daylight.

Excuse me.

Confronting the brazen thief as he escapes.

Look, I'm in a bit of a rush. I ain't got time for this.

And a minicab driver is hot on the heels of a phone snatcher...

He swerved out into the oncoming lane,

suddenly it's escalated way out of a missing second-hand phone.

..creating his own ingenious roadblock.

He's not going to drive away in a hurry cos he's going to have

to drive through a wall of wheelie bins.

And social media helps a seaside community track down a heartless charity thief.

I noticed the box had disappeared, and I was absolutely distraught.

We had about 30 comments saying that they thought it was this one guy.

As we know all too well here on Thief Trackers,

theft from a vehicle is a common crime...

..with over 1,600 incidents a day in 2016.

Helping Thief Trackers with our investigation is former detective Chief Superintendent Sue Hill,

who has spent over 30 years tackling crime on the streets of the capital.

It's very, very common that people leave items of value in their car.

The whole length of this road I've looked in

and there are various items

that could be stolen from any of these vehicles.

You just think for that minute, I'll be back in a moment,

I'll just leave my phone, it's going to be fine.

And then it happens. If it's valuable, lock it away.

We've fitted a GPS tracker into a laptop, so if it's stolen we can

trace the signal on a smartphone or tablet and track it down.

Following the thieves' every move is the Thief Trackers undercover team

mounting a covert surveillance operation.

For their safety, you won't see them,

but you'll hear their voices...

OK, get the tracker up. If we're going to do this, do it now.

..as they follow the thieves' every move.

We're rigging a car with hidden cameras.

And we will leave a laptop in the car on view,

just like so many of us who carelessly leave our valuables in plain sight.

If a thief strikes, we'll capture their every move.

The cameras are set and the team observe from a car parked nearby.

Time to watch and wait.

OK, let's see what happens there.

This area is pretty quiet,

which makes it ideal for thieves scoping parked cars.

If there is anything left in a car,

it can take just seconds for them to strike and make off with the property.

Guy at the bottom of the street.

And it's not long before the team spots someone.

It seems he's looking at his phone.

But he appears to be checking out this car...

What's this guy up to?

..and this car, too.

He walks past our camera car...

-That guy looked at the car there.

-Yeah.

It was a brief look.

..but carries on, and the area remains quiet.

A couple of people here. Who are these guys?

The passers-by seem to be residents going about their business.

Further down the road, the team spy the man from earlier.

That boy is down the bottom again now.

The Thief Trackers have been in place for some time.

-I think we're going to have to go elsewhere.

-Yeah?

-There's just

-not enough footfall here at all.

-Yeah, a bit more populated.

Suddenly, they spot a familiar face.

That guy's back.

That guy is back.

What's he doing?

In seconds, he returns.

What is he doing?

The man strikes,

smashing the window and making off with our laptop and phone.

OK, let's get cameras.

The undercover team are right behind him.

Let's go.

Later: Our Thief Trackers confront the brazen laptop thief.

No problem, mate, I just...

One man who knows all about having his property stolen from his car

is Robert Hallmark, the CEO of a male grooming company

and part-time minicab driver.

He's one of the 80% of Brits who now own a smartphone -

a popular target for thieves, with a whopping 800,000 stolen every year.

Robert has two smartphones, one for work and one for personal use.

He made the mistake of thinking they'd be safe if they were hidden away in his car.

I keep my work phone inside the centre console.

It's hidden from sight.

It's not something you could sort of look at and go,

there must be a phone in there.

One morning, Rob had a rude awakening.

An opportunist broke into his car and ransacked it,

taking his phone and other valuables.

Luckily, a neighbour had seen someone getting out of the car

and quickly alerted Rob.

I was in our kitchen. It was at the other side

of the house so I didn't hear the alarm go off.

When I looked inside the centre compartment, it had been opened up.

It's where I kept my phone.

That was gone.

I didn't immediately notice anything else

cos there's nothing really of value in there.

They'd sort of left the chewing gum packet, if you like.

The thief had stolen Rob's work phone,

which has a built in GPS tracker.

He was able to log in to the tracking app using his personal

mobile and see where the crook and the stolen smartphone were.

When I logged in, I wasn't sure what to expect.

Part of me had a mixed reaction cos I was obviously quite cross about

the crime, but then my face slightly lit up when I went on to the app

and I saw my phone from the car wasn't, if you like, at my address.

It was still tracking its location.

The tracker gave him an immediate position fix on his phone.

It was about a mile and a half away in Birmingham,

so it's not like it was making its way up the M42 or something.

I started to think, actually, that's within reach.

So a little part of me was thinking, this may not just be over yet.

With his stolen phone in his sights, Rob set off in pursuit.

I had not only the street name but its location on that street.

So I felt I could probably locate that handset quite accurately,

certainly within a few doors of the address.

When I arrived at the address, I could see the phone hadn't moved,

so I knew, sitting outside the house, if my phone moved,

I could probably join the dots between my phone moving

on the app and someone walking on that street.

Whilst staking out the street, he called the police.

I was on the phone to the police through 101, giving them

the details, cos I had no intentions of being a vigilante.

I was just thinking, if I can identify the person,

I can give their location to the police.

Cos I'd had this determination, I'm going to get the phone back,

this is such a pain to have lost it.

So whilst I didn't want confrontation,

I also didn't want to just limp off home.

And it wasn't long before something caught his eye.

A man got into a car and drove off, clearly in a hurry.

It was driving very quickly from a standing position.

Rob followed, keeping a discreet distance.

And the way it accelerated, I thought we can all be

a bit late but that was particularly aggressive.

But that added to my conviction that was someone who had the phone on them.

The tracking signals showed the stolen phone was on the move.

I could see it was on a road we had driven along.

As he tracked the thief,

Rob kept the police updated on his phone's movements.

The police reaction to me following the vehicle was interesting,

cos their primary concern isn't mobile phones, it's safety,

so their view was, we can't interfere when someone's

just worried about, "I might be hurt."

That's not really a reason for them to interrupt what they're doing and come out.

So they had a mixed reaction in, "Are you in danger?

"Are you putting yourself in danger?"

Which they obviously don't want to encourage, but equally, they

don't want to leave you hanging dry if something was going to happen.

Then the thief made a dramatic move.

There was a queue of traffic in front, two lanes with red lights.

He swerved out into the oncoming lane and swung left at the junction

and that was actually the biggest mistake because it was at that point

the police were, "OK, we're going to connect you to the local patrol cars,"

because suddenly it's escalating way out of a missing second-hand

phone into, he does a stunt like that again,

he could hit someone crossing a road, a pedestrian,

cyclist or an oncoming car. So that changed things massively.

Rob's updates to the police were a great help to them.

Officer David Wilson was in charge of the case.

It was keeping constant updates as to the offender's whereabouts

while our controllers tried to direct in a dog unit

and a traffic unit to try and apprehend the offender.

He continued to track the thief with his smartphone,

then the trail took another turn.

Previously, he's always been on some road in Birmingham

and I fed that information back to the police.

Now it looked like he was in someone's garden.

Knowing the police wouldn't be far behind,

Rob parked up to continue tracking his phone on foot.

As I looked at the handset, I could see it was still, like,

a few more metres to my side, where there was a big wall.

I thought, I'll have a peek over and see what's on the other side

of the wall and lo and behold, as I peeked, there we were,

we were facing each other.

He was now eyeball to eyeball with the thief.

I can see a wall of garages, so I think,

"Oh, hello, he's done some kind of Fast And Furious,

"where you hide in a garage and get away from being found.

And we were about four yards apart and we've kind of looked

at each other but he might have not known I was. Clearly,

I knew who he was because I'd seen him walking in and out of houses.

So instead of me playing it cool, pretending I was looking for

a lost cat or dog or something,

I was kind of shocked as if, like, "You've got my phone."

And he looked startled.

I then thought he was going to drive off, I'm now a walk from my car,

so this is no chance of catching up.

In a split second,

Rob hatched a cunning plan to stop the crook in his tracks.

So I then run round the front of the other drive he's used,

grabbing wheelie bins as I go, cos they were out on the street,

to go, he's not going to drive away in a hurry cos he's going

to have to drive through a wall of wheelie bins.

That was my great idea in that split second.

The thief was now cornered.

This could make things worse for Rob as the crook might do anything in his desperation to escape.

You know, I'm a guy who's had an office job his whole life,

so not really taught in sort of unarmed combat.

So I don't really want to get in a confrontation,

I think that would damage the police work as well.

I'm just trying to get the police to his location.

But adrenaline's coursing through and you feel like it's now or never, do something.

My advice would be to not put yourself in danger,

not to confront the offender.

However, on this occasion Rob was on the phone to the police at the same

time, police were making toward to try and apprehend the offender.

So at no point did he put himself in any danger.

I think he heard me on the phone in that kind of,

he's obviously got someone on the phone with him and it could be

the police because I'm saying things like, "He's right here."

"He's standing, I'm at this road."

And I guess he took the view, why get in a kerfuffle?

With seemingly nowhere to go, the phone snatcher made a last ditch bid

to escape the long arm of the law.

His survival instinct's obviously quite strong.

He turns round and runs over a six foot wall behind him

like it was a two foot jump.

And I was just standing there in shock going,

"I did not expect that!"

The thief dropped his key.

The police said that's very common.

You don't want to be caught with the key to a car that just been involved

in this potential crime, so I thought I might be stuck there

all day with some sort of CSI forensic tent coming out.

But I guess the police see this kind of stuff, sadly,

day in day out. So they were quite relaxed,

picked the key up off the floor,

opened the car, and there was my phone, sitting on the passenger seat

with a couple of other things from the car that he'd taken.

And they just handed it back to me.

So it all kind of felt very matter-of-fact at that stage.

Thanks to the entrepreneur's quick thinking and the smartphone tracking

system, he got his phone back and the thief got what he deserved.

With the description given to us by Rob, we were able

to identify the offender and effected arrest shortly afterwards.

Due to the overwhelming evidence against the offender,

he was charged with two counts of theft from a motor vehicle.

He was remanded in police custody and appeared at court

the following day, where he pleaded guilty to both offences.

That was great. That was a really good feel-good factor

and really pleased it worked out.

We're returning to our surveillance operation with the Thief Trackers undercover team.

Earlier, the team rigged a car with hidden cameras and,

as so many people do, left a laptop on the front seat in plain sight.

And in broad daylight, this man,

who had been scoping out cars in the area, did this.

Armed with a hammer, the calculated crook steals the laptop

and phone in a shockingly fast time.

From the first blow to his escape takes just seven seconds.

The thief then calmly walks away.

What he doesn't realise is the Thief Trackers are right behind him.

-Let's go.

-I'm going to quickly go ahead, yeah?

Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead and try and film him. I'll try and keep up.

The thief heads south, with the undercover team on his tail.

He is not far away.

The guy's just walked around the car a couple of times.

I didn't take any notice of him, really, I thought he was just lost.

And then he came back, disappeared round the corner...

..went into a bag and looks like he took out a tool

and smashed the window and went straight for the contents.

The team have caught up.

The crook is just ahead, but they must be cautious.

Is that him down there?

Yeah, it is. It is.

Yeah, he looked like it's on his back.

I'm trying to keep a distance at the moment until we're around some

people. I don't want to approach him if he's got a tool in his bag.

He's pretty strong, pretty violent.

I'd rather know we were safe before we talk to him.

They close in, and the signal shows the thief is just around the corner.

And there he is, only a few metres away.

On this quiet suburban street,

it won't be long before he spots the Thief Trackers.

-I think we should talk to him.

-Yeah, yeah, do it, do it, do it.

Though there's a possibility that the thief might still have a tool on

him, the team decide to carefully approach to see what he has to say.

He's looked back. I think we're going to do this, we do it now.

Excuse me, mate.

Excuse me.

Hi, mate, sorry to bother you. How you doing?

My friend's car's just had a laptop taken from it.

Right.

I just wondered if you know anything about it.

No, mate, sorry, I'm not from round here.

-So...

-A black laptop from a Smart car.

I ain't got time... Look, I'm in a bit of a rush,

-I ain't got time for this. All right?

-OK.

It's fine. No, it's fine.

No problem, mate.

No, no, I just... You're the first person I've seen since it went,

I just thought I'd ask.

-I'm in a bit of a rush, yeah?

-All right.

It's no surprise he's in a rush,

he's just smashed a car window and pinched our laptop and phone.

He's clearly on edge, so the team decide not to press him

further and risk a physical confrontation.

He's shaking. He's got adrenaline pumping through him.

We've got the trackers anyway, so we can keep an eye on where he's gone.

It's definitely the guy, though.

That scared me a little bit. That was... That was a bit intense.

Guy was moving at quite a pace.

I think he'd a tool on him, which he'd put back in the bag.

-Yeah.

-I'm not going to...

I'm not going to antagonise someone with that.

So we're back at the car now.

And it's...

It's been properly done in.

Yeah.

It was brazen.

Really, really brazen.

On returning to the car, the team discover

the crook has dropped the hammer he used for the break-in.

We can see he hits the window with such force the hammer flies

out of his hand. That's a very useful piece of evidence.

And in his haste to steal our property,

the thief cuts himself on the broken glass.

When we confront him, you can see he's obviously bleeding

from both arms, the blood visible on his trousers.

He appears self-conscious of his wound,

seemingly concealing it when talking to one of our team.

Not only do we have video evidence,

we have fingerprint and DNA evidence, too.

All right. I think we're done here. Let's get back to somewhere safe.

Although the thief has our laptop, we can still track his movements.

The signal shows he walks to the main road

and heads north towards the theft area.

However, it comes to stop just around the corner

and doesn't move from this position.

It's possible the thief has hidden the laptop to recover later,

so we search the area, but find nothing.

However, the team notice a glitch in the tracking data,

the signal appears unresponsive.

So the team stake out the location,

waiting for the thief to make his next move,

but he didn't show up.

The crook seems to have been spooked by our confrontation

and maybe realises we're on to him.

It's likely he's taken the laptop to a quiet spot, searched it,

found the tracker and destroyed it.

Former Detective Chief Superintendent Sue Hill has been looking at his crime.

It's shocking, really, isn't it?

Nobody's come out, nobody's heard him.

In the hours of daylight, most people think they're

going to be safe, that there are people milling about,

somebody's going to see something happen,

and so they would be more inclined to leave property on show,

thinking, "Oh, no, it won't happen to me." Well, it will happen to you.

That happens every day up and down the country.

I would look at it and think, "Really?"

Bit older for a car thief, really, but once a thief, always a thief.

The thief who took the item, he's gone equipped, he's got his

rucksack, no-one's going to stop him, he's never going to be stopped

and searched, why would he? He looks like a regular guy

going to the gym with a rucksack and yet within seven seconds,

he could smash through that car window and take a laptop,

so let's get wise to these people.

Don't leave valuables in your car, full stop.

Although he may still have our laptop and phone,

we have the unblurred footage of this smash and grab thief in action,

clear as day, should the authorities wish to take a look.

One of the most loved charities in the UK is the Royal British Legion,

whose annual Poppy Appeal raises millions to support former service personnel.

The donations that we receive during the annual Poppy Appeal

are incredibly important to the organisation.

We simply couldn't exist without the generosity of the public.

The funds that are raised help us help hundreds of thousands of families each year.

We provide practical support and services

to the Armed Forces community and we also act as a campaigner,

trying to get the Government to put in place changes that will support

past generations and those to come.

Every autumn, 25,000 collection tins are sent out for the Poppy Appeal,

looked after by patriotic supporters like those in this Southend restaurant.

A lot of people who work here have strong ties with the

British Legion, so we feel it is important to raise as much money

as we can when it comes to the Poppy Appeal.

But not everyone is as charitable.

Across the country, heartless crooks target collection boxes

as an easy way to make quick cash.

Back in 2016, this seaside restaurant

found itself a target for a callous and calculating crook.

It was one of our usual busy Saturday nights,

it was about 7.30pm. We are fully booked every weekend

so we get a lot of people coming through our restaurant.

As soon as we realised that the tin had gone, we went into

our office and we checked the CCTV footage.

And what they saw was appalling.

Bold as brass, this despicable thief

sneaks the charity tin into his bag, then calmly walks off.

We never in a million years thought that someone would be bold enough

to take the poppy tin right from under our noses.

Because our staff were distracted due to it being a busy Saturday

night, there was no-one on the reception,

so the guy had free rein to be able to take his time, walk around,

make a calculated move, and he just put the tin

just straight into his bag and then just snuck his way out.

As he left, he nearly bumped into some unsuspecting customers.

Seconds earlier and he'd have been caught in the act.

The tin was about three quarters full,

so we estimate there was probably about £80-90 in the tin.

They informed the police, but Mikey decided direct action

was needed to try and track down the poppy tin snatcher,

so he put out an appeal to the local community via social media.

We had quite an overwhelming response.

The video actually got shared over 7,500 times

and we got nearly 400,000 views.

There was a lot of people who clearly cared about what had

happened, so we actually managed to get quite a lot of helpful insights

into who the culprit might be.

But this cold-hearted charity thief wasn't finished.

It seems he was targeting other local businesses.

I was working at the far end there on the block.

I turned round and there was someone standing there,

asking me for some meat...

..and he then waved his finger and said, "Oh, no,"...

..and walked out.

I noticed the box had disappeared...

..and I was absolutely distraught.

The crook had slipped the tin into his jacket whilst Trevor was distracted.

It just give me a terrible feeling inside me, thinking,

"How could that have happened to me?"

Thankfully, Trevor also had CCTV,

which captured a man in the same coat as the restaurant thief.

I decided that I would put it on Facebook to see if anyone

knew the character who'd come in and taken the poppy box.

And the response was absolutely fantastic.

Thanks to social media, news quickly spread through

the community that a charity thief was on the prowl,

and the net was closing in.

It was soon clear from the comments that there was actually

a lot of people who recognised who the guy might be.

We had about 30 comments saying that they thought it was this one guy.

It seems this must be their man.

So surely it wouldn't be long before their social media campaign would trap the thief.

I was only too pleased that I had put it on Facebook

because someone had spotted him off of the,

off the Facebook page and he was finally arrested.

Still in the area, he was seen on a train

by a guard who recognised him from the web posts.

He was promptly arrested and charged with the thefts.

There was a lot of outrage regarding what had happened.

It was obviously a very upsetting thing to see,

considering it was a charity

that people hold quite dear to their hearts.

It made me feel...

good and pleased that he'd been caught

and he would pay the penalty for what he'd done.

The courts didn't show the heartless crook any charity.

He was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay a £300 fine

to the British Legion.

We were all very pleased that the people of Southend

identified the thief and helped bring him to justice.

It meant that the money that they raised to support the Armed Forces

community went to the intended purpose.

And the local businesses were not deterred by this one-man crime spree.

-See you later, mate.

-Here, your change.

-It's all right, don't worry about it.

-I'll put it in the box.

-No problem. See ya.

I then put a new poppy box up and we done marvellous

because everyone came round and put extra money in, I think.

They were giving me £5 notes to put in the box,

so we had a bumper year this year.

We will, of course, always be supporting the Poppy Appeal,

but this time maybe we will have to have the tin chained down next time.

Next year, when I get presented with my box

and my poppies, I'll be screwing it down to the counter.

No-one will have it. And we've got extra cameras in here now!