How To Prevent Item Theft In Vans & Work Vehicles
Written 1 month ago by Angel Croitor
Thefts from vans of tradesmen’s tools is on the rise, Sergeant Graham Kavanagh who is Crime Prevention Officer for Laois-Offaly tells us, and we wanted to know what you could do to ensure that you keep your tools as safe and as secure as possible.
The criminal gang(s) isn’t targeting one area in particular but rather travelling county to county. They’re keeping an eye on certain types of vehicles and they’ve done their research on how to break into particular types of vans.
The information Graham Kavanagh wants you to know is that first and foremost awareness regarding these crimes is crucial. Knowing what is going on at the moment and keeping an eye out for suspicious activity and taking the necessary steps to keep your own equipment in your possession.
One thing everyone needs to start doing, according to Graham Kavanagh, is marking your own property or keeping note of serial numbers or anything that identifies it is your piece of property.
But you must be careful marking your property because you might end up providing the criminal with more information about your property and the various items they may steal by attaching something such as an eircode onto your property. You must be discreet with the placement of your markings and making sure you’ve documented that marking.
“But if you’ve something with Will Faulkner stamped into the piece of equipment they wont be too happy about buying that because suddenly they don’t know when they’ll be stopped by the police – they’re not Will Faulkner and they’ve questions to answer as to why they’ve got it.”
A big thing is photographing your piece of property and logging it somewhere so that the Gardai can circulate to themselves or the media to find the culprits and potentially get your items back.
Despite the various ways you can prevent theft of your property in the end a relentless criminal will take what they’ve set out to take. All we can do is to make the property as repellent to theft as possible by branding it in one way or another.
Do you have any advice for us on item theft and prevention of theft? Tell us at midlandstoday@midlandsradio.fm.
