Where there are vehicles, there are people who want to steal them, or at least their parts. Not only is removing specific parts or accessories easier than taking the entire car, but it can be much more profitable as they can be worth more than the market value of the vehicle they were taken from.
In this month’s Arrest of the Month video, we caught someone trying to steal the wheels from a pickup truck parked in a dealership’s lot. He didn’t get the outcome for which he was hoping.
After hours one night at an automotive dealership, a trained ECAM security operator observed a red pickup drive onto the lot and circle around before backing up and stopping next to a gray truck. The driver of the red vehicle exited the truck, walked to its tailgate and opened it. After moving around between the two pickups, the driver returned to the bed of his truck and removed some tools. He went to the rear passenger-side of the gray truck and removed its wheel, putting wood planks in its place.
Our security professional, who was monitoring the situation closely in real time, called to dispatch police. After loading the stolen wheel into the back of his pickup, the perpetrator returned to the gray truck to remove the rear driver’s side wheel. While he was putting wood planks under the vehicle in place of the wheel, police arrived. After handcuffing the suspect, the responding officer could be seen speaking with him for several minutes, until two more police officers arrived.
Tires and Wheels Among the Most Stolen Vehicle Parts
In about 10 minutes, a determined thief armed with a few tools can pull off a set of wheels. Because they don’t typically have serial numbers, they aren’t traceable. Thieves commonly target tires and wheels as they are easy to sell and can garner quite a lot of money. A set of tires can go for as much as $5,000 or more.
How to Help Protect Valuable Auto Parts from Theft
Today’s thieves have become savvier and more brazen. They have honed their tools and tricks that allow them to easily steal parts straight from a dealership lot. While some businesses use security guards to watch over their property, that isn’t always the most effective solution. While a guard is patrolling one area, thieves will target another area.
That is exactly what happened at Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis. Thieves stole the tires and wheels from a vehicle in the front of the dealership while the guard was patrolling the back.
What Don Brown did, and many other dealerships in North America have done, was contact ECAM. Our remote video surveillance is a proactive solution that helps prevent theft and damage before it happens. Trained security professionals monitor analytics-based cameras to identify suspicious activity. When the technology identifies something unusual, it will alert the monitoring operator who can jump in, assess the situation, and help proactively deter theft and loss or quickly dispatch local authorities to respond.
In this video, our operator immediately contacted local authorities upon seeing the suspect removing the wheels from a pickup truck. Because we are watching crimes in progress, police typically elevate the priority level of our calls. This often results in responding officers arriving on the scene while the suspects are still there.
Contact us today to learn more about a remote video monitoring security solution for your business to help protect your assets and property.
