Why do thieves steal Heavy Equipment?
The answer is simple. The reward for the thief far outweighs the risk taken. Heavy equipment often has little physical machine or site security, is valuable and is easy to sell. The low recovery rate is a clear indication of the low risk for a thief. If an item is recovered, an arrest may not be made. Where an arrest is made, a conviction may not be secured. Even where a conviction is secured, the penalty is likely to be light. What makes it so easy to steal Heavy Equipment? The first problem in equipment recovery is the time lapse from theft to theft discovery. A car theft will be discovered hours, if not minutes, after the crime. A Heavy Equipment theft on a Friday night might not be discovered until Monday morning. Equipment owners with larger fleets or multi-site operations may not discover the theft for days, weeks or, in some cases, months. This gives the thief a ‘window’ of opportunity when any investigation by law enforcement will not find a theft report. This is a particular p
