316
How a fed up carpenter found his stolen power tools — and 15,000 others
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
316 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
58303 readers
17 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Determined to shut down thieves, he said, he bought a bunch of Apple AirTags and hid the locator devices in some of his larger tools that hadn’t been pilfered.
On Jan. 22, after a third break-in and theft, the carpenter said, he drove around D.C.’s Maryland suburbs for hours, following an intermittent blip on his iPhone, until he arrived at a storage facility in Howard County.
The storage unit, stuffed with purloined power tools, led detectives to similar caches in other places in the next four months — 12 locations in all, 11 of them in Howard County — and the recovery of about 15,000 saws, drills, sanders, grinders, generators, batteries, air compressors and other portable (meaning easily stealable) construction equipment worth an estimated $3 million to $5 million, authorities said.
“The scope of the investigation is enormous and ongoing,” the chief said, adding, “We believe the tools were stolen from retail stores, businesses, vehicles, residential properties and construction sites.”
Der said detectives have identified about 80 victims so far, “and we believe there are hundreds if not thousands more.” Police created an online form for people to fill out if they think their stolen tools might be somewhere in the piles.
It asks for serial numbers, receipts, photos or any “identifying marks, initials, or numbers.” Authorities declined to discuss further details of the investigation
The original article contains 648 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!