Member Article

Stolen GPS leads police to hideout

We haven’t had a ‘stupid criminal’ story for a few weeks, so today we bring you what appears to be one of the easiest arrests ever made. An Australian man has been charged with robbery after he was tracked by a satellite navigation system he had stolen. The bust led police to recover thousands of dollars of stolen equipment taken in what appeared to be sophisticated heists.

When thieves broke into a haulage company’s office in early October they stole nearly £6000 of equipment including a demonstration pack, a laptop computer and half-a-dozen in-car navigators.

But five days later, a thief plugged the software in which alerted the company to the precise location of its stolen equipment.

Murray Griffith, business development manager, said: “We were fairly confident he was going to be silly enough to plug it in because it looks like something to plug in. The curiosity would have killed the cat, without a doubt. It was quite funny, we had a bit of a laugh and then contacted police. But I don’t think it took much to outsmart him though. If he was that smart he wouldn’t be a criminal.”

Well said, Mr Griffith.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .