Using GPS tracking and security system reports, the owners, equipment hire firm A-Plant, pinpointed that the vehicle had left the country from Southampton docks nine days after the theft.
The tracking system developers contacted the docks to get the timetable and schedules of all ships sailing out that day and found the Gibralta-bound ship which carried the loader.
The skid-steer loader was carried across the Mediterranean and down the Suez Canal to Oman where it was unloaded.
Further tracking using the A-Track system – developed by A-Plant and Enigma Vehicle Systems – pinpointed it to a new location in the neighbouring UAE state of Sharjah.
An undercover representative visited the location and found the people holding the vehicle and Interpol completed the paperwork to recover it.
Display of powers
Eleven days after its theft in England, the chief executive of Enigma, Ian Keam-George arrived in Dubai with DataTag scanning equipment to identify the vehicle.
Three days later the Sharjah police took two suspects into custody with not only the loader but also a generator stolen from another plant hire company in the Manchester area.
Said Andy Wortley, IT director at A-Plant: “The recovery of the skid-steer loader after a trip of well over a thousand miles to the Indian Ocean is a brilliant display of the powers offered by A-Track”.
Using mobile GPRS devices fitted to the vehicles, it has proven to be a “powerful deterrent” against theft with a 98 per cent recover rate.
By logging on to A-Plant’s Extranet site, customers who hire the equipment can get status information such as: is it operating properly and is it being used in the right location?
They can also generate an aerial photograph of the site where it is being used. The photographs are so good that they have guided police to carry out “many recoveries” of stolen plant – even when it was hidden, says the company.
