Car dealerships, even in rural areas, are targets for thieves, as a Wexford County, Michigan dealership regretfully learned last month. Video surveillance alone wasn’t adequate protection against tire and trailer theft.
The attack on the car dealership left owners speechless and scrambling to piece together what transpired. Only after a visitor on the lot called to report seeing cars with missing tires did owners discover a missing utility trailer and 11 tireless vehicles.
A review of surveillance video clearly showed a pickup truck pulling into the dealership lot just before 4 AM on a Sunday morning. The thief drove off minutes later, pulling the utility trailer. He drove directly to their auto auction lot at a different location.
There, the thief spent considerable time. He had to jack up each of the 11 vehicles, remove the lug nuts, remove the wheels and load them into the stolen trailer. The dealer valued the utility trailer theft at $1,800. Tires taken from each of the 11 targeted cars value $500 to $600 per vehicle. There was no evidence documented at the auction lot of the criminal activity. At the time of this writing, the crime is still unsolved.
The dealership is not a client of Stealth Monitoring. With Stealth proactive live surveillance an operator could have seen the tire and trailer thefts, activated an audible warning to deter the thieves, and called the local police.
Contact Stealth Monitoring to learn more about the protection that real-time video monitoring can provide.
