Nature & extent of equipment theft in UK, NI & Europe
This section of the Report will illustrate the Who, What, When, Why, Where, and How of equipment theft.
WHY IS PLANT AND EQUIPMENT STOLEN?
High value. Many items of equipment are significantly more valuable than other criminal targets, such as motor vehicles or the goods that can be stolen from private houses. The average value of thefts registered with TER is around £15,000.
Low integral security. Most higher value plant and equipment has little integral security. A universal key still operates most equipment. There are few immobilisers, tracking devices or physical barriers fitted as standard to plant and equipment. In general, this is because there is little demand for integral security.
Low crime reduction awareness. Owners and users of plant and equipment do not look after it. Equipment is often abandoned at roadsides or on unprotected sites overnight, over weekends and holidays.
No due diligence checking. There is no culture of due diligence in the used equipment market. Very few parties appear to concern themselves with the ownership status of an item of used equipment prior to purchase, sale, insurance or finance, despite the known high levels of equipment theft, and of stolen equipment in circulation in the UK. TER has £200M of stolen plant and equipment registered on its database. As good title cannot be purchased in stolen property, no matter how many hands it has been through (National Employers Mutual General Insurance Association v Jones, April 21 1988), one might have thought that buyers, sellers and banks would have had a significant interest in knowing that the plant they are about to buy, sell or finance is not stolen. But this does not appear to be the case. Insurers, who end up owning a significant quantity of the stolen equipment, then insure that it with other of their equipment owning clients! In other circumstances this would be laughable, but here the proceeds of this crime are linked to a range of serious and organised crime and to terrorism.
Demand. There is huge demand for used plant and equipment, in the UK, in Ireland, in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and globally. There is a worldwide trade in used equipment, but unsurprisingly the undercurrent to this legitimate trade is the trade in stolen plant and equipment. Most of the criminality involved in plant and equipment theft are already involved with equipment and so have the knowledge of the equipment trade and easy access to the means of disposal in order to convert the stolen item into cash.
Law enforcement awareness. Specific targets for plant and equipment theft reduction and related crime clear-up rates are not given to Chief Constables by the Home Office. It is, therefore, not a part of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary’s audit process. Little, if any, training is done by law enforcement on plant and equipment identification. Such information and intelligence held on plant and equipment crime is, generally, parked unless it has specific relevance for target related crime. Around 60% of the higher value equipment theft data held by the police is incorrect or unusable. A part of the reason for this is that the party reporting the theft does not have the correct equipment identification data, and another part is because those entering the data are not trained to recognise what the data should look like. The penalties for equipment theft do not provide a significant deterrent to serious and organised criminals – it is generally a high reward, low risk activity.