AMI Group has led West Yorkshire Police to a haul of stolen plant equipment worth £250,000 following the recovery of a stolen roller protected with an AMI tracking device
AMI’s monitoring station received a phone call from a customer reporting the theft of a Bomag BW120 road roller. The roller was protected with the AT5, AMI’s covertly installed tracking device, plus a third party immobiliser. The AT5 utilises state-of-the-art GPS (Global Positioning System), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and RF (Radio Frequency) technology, with highly sensitive assisted GPS positioning accurate to within 1 metre.
Once the AT5 is fitted to a piece of plant machinery, both AMI’s monitoring station and the customer can log on to the AMI Nexis web-based portal to establish the exact destination of the asset. AMI activated the hidden AT5 tracking system and carried out minute-by-minute monitoring of the stolen plant equipment. AMI’s monitoring station could see that the roller was being transported inside a vehicle along the M18. AMI’s finder team were immediately put into action and followed the vehicle.
The AMI finder team followed the roller’s AT5 signal to a locked compound in Scarborough and despatched a drone to survey the site to try and gain photographic evidence that the roller had been placed within the compound. The drone survey revealed that the stolen Bomag roller was indeed there and AMI’s finder team subsequently entered the compound alongside the West Yorkshire Police.
The Police and PANIU (Plant and Agricultural National Intelligence Unit) confirmed the identity of the Bomag roller which was successfully recovered the same day by AMI’s customer. The compound was subsequently searched and a haul of other stolen plant equipment worth £250,000 was found, including another stolen roller, a Manitou telehandler, a JCB telehandler and other items of equipment. Further investigations are currently ongoing with the Police.
This large haul of stolen plant equipment was uncovered due to the Bomag roller being fitted with the AT5 tracking device. The AT5 actively monitors over £475m worth of assets and has helped customers across the UK track down and recover stolen equipment.
In 2016 and again in 2017 AMI Group was named ‘Best for After-Theft Recovery Technology and Recognised Leaders in Plant Security Systems – UK’ as part of the Technology Innovator Awards.
