 | Home > Stolen > Farmer turns detective to track down tractor GPS thief |
 
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| Supacat Member Since: 16 Oct 2012 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 11018   
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Not Defender per se, but hopefully noteworthy in the Stolen section.
 Click image to enlarge "A farmer turned detective and traced a rural thief believed to be responsible for the large-scale theft of high-value tractor global positioning system (GPS) equipment. The entire fleet of John Deere GreenStar cab displays and StarFire satellite receivers were taken in an overnight raid on 15 July at Prestons Agricultural Contractors in Desford, Leicestershire. The theft took place between midnight and 2am and a suspect, a man aged in his 30s, was captured on CCTV stealing the items. The farmer alerted Leicestershire Police and officers arrived at the scene at aboutv 9am the same morning. They could not find any lines of enquiry and issued a standard crime reference number. But devastated company owner Adam Preston and his team decided they would try to track down the suspect. Tracking device After Mr Preston had suffered the theft of GPS kit from his tractors on a previous occasion, he had installed tracking device on some of the domes. The small devices were purchased from Amazon for about £200 and included an app which allows users to trace their whereabouts. Following the theft, the tracker devices were signalling on the app that the stolen domes were situated about 40 miles away, in the West Midlands. Mr Preston and three others jumped in a car and travelled to a built-up area in Birmingham. The trackers were able to pinpoint a rough location where the domes were located. While the four men were parked up at the roadside, they suddenly spotted a man carrying a bag, with what seemed to contain the familiar yellow domes. The farmers got out of the car and pursued the man on foot. They saw him walk over to another vehicle and open the boot, which revealed an “Aladdin’s cave” of stolen tractor domes and screens. As the farmers ran towards the suspect, he panicked and fled, jumping across gardens and vaulting fences. However, thanks to their efforts, police were able to input the details of the abandoned small van on the national Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) database. They found the vehicle’s registration was recorded in the locality of tractor GPS kit thefts in areas covered by seven police forces in England. This includes thefts in Cheshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire and Wiltshire. The suspect has since fled to eastern Europe and police forces are trying to trace him and bring him to justice. Mr Preston said: “If the courts had got their backside into gear and issued the police a warrant for his arrest earlier, they may have been able to apprehend him before he managed to get out of the country. If he comes back here, they will pick him up.” Items recovered Meanwhile, Mr Preston has recovered all the items stolen from his farm, worth about £100,000 in total. Additional GPS kit, worth about £30,000 in the same haul, has been returned to a farmer in Skegness after it was stolen in an earlier raid. In total, police estimate that the suspect could be responsible for the theft of around £400,000 of kit from tractors. They are not sure if he was working alone, but believe he may have had spotters making farm deliveries and tipping him off about the locations of John Deere kit. PC Rob Cross, a rural police officer based at Market Bosworth, investigating, told Farmers Weekly: “From an evidence point of view, the suspect was the only person at the farm. He was later found carrying the stolen items and the car was registered to him. “From a practical point of view, we think he’s working with someone else. It is quite noticeable he has knowledge about where John Deere kit is.” PC Cross encouraged farmers and landowners to ramp up security on their farms, to make it difficult for rural thieves. CCTV, electric front gates, high bunds, tracker devices, heavy duty fencing, sheds with roller shutter doors were all good options, he added. “Remember, when baling or harvesting your crop of wheat, these people are out there watching vulnerable farms.” https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/crime/farmer-tu...-gps-thief My question would be why the farmer didn't tell the Police some of the stolen equipment contained trackers? Lack of trust or low opinion that they would do anything in a timely manner? |
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22nd Aug 2020 7:48am |
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| Tim in Scotland Member Since: 23 May 2007 Location: The Land that time forgot Posts: 3753 
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I wonder where there is a market for knocked off GPS tracker systems, Iran? The John Deere domes are not something you could easily disguise on the roof of a car.......
https://www.deere.co.uk/common/docs/produc...4823_e.pdf Pangea Green D250 90 HSE with Air Suspension, Off-road Pack, Towing Pack, Black Contrast roof , rear recovery eyes, Front bash plate, Classic flaps all round, extended wheel arch kit and a few bits from PowerfulUK Expel Clear Gloss PPF to come 2020 D240 1st Edition in Pangea Green with Acorn interior. Now gone - old faithful, no mechanical issues whatsoever ever but the leaks and rattles all over the place won’t be missed! |
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22nd Aug 2020 8:16am |
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| blackwolf Member Since: 03 Nov 2009 Location: South West England Posts: 17452 
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In fairness we don't actually know from that report that that he did not, it's possible that he did but the Police declined to act on it, which would raise some different questions. A good result albeit not as good as it could have been. What sad times though when victims of crime have to solve the crime. |
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22nd Aug 2020 8:47am |
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| Supacat Member Since: 16 Oct 2012 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 11018
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I think I read that into this statement " They could not find any lines of enquiry and issued a standard crime reference number."
But yes, there's an element missing and the reporter could have made it clearer, as it's an easy/obvious (well it appeared that way to me!) conclusion to make. |
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22nd Aug 2020 8:53am |
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| Rashers Member Since: 21 Jun 2015 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3518 
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Anything plant or agricultural has a tremendously high resale value abroad.
I wasn't aware that GPS units were being targeted, but they are 'options' which are easily installed and thus easily stollen. Its a great story. Thanks Supacat 
Agricultural theft is a big problem. The cost of the kit is eye-watering. Just a good job this lowlife wasn't carrying a knife or even a gun when these guys went after him. No amount of recovered equipment is worth loosing your life for. |
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22nd Aug 2020 6:18pm |
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| mini Anaconda Member Since: 23 Aug 2016 Location: Thames Valley Posts: 786
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The theft of John Deere greenstar/starfire is rife. There are locking devices available for some models of the GPS units but similarly to many of the anti-theft devices we fit to our Defenders, they can be overcome by the more determined thief. Thieves are also stealing the John Deere GPS control screens within the cab and cutting the wiring loom to remove them quickly, leaving the farmer with a mess to deal with.
 BORG - Bucks & Oxon 4x4 Response Group
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22nd Aug 2020 8:09pm |
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