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Chris Rowland's Indianapolis Woodcraft store was burglarized not once, but five
times over a few month period. Every time he was ripped off, the thieves were consistently
stealing expensive Festool power tools. Tired of the police not helping
him recover his stolen merchadise, he decided to take matters into his
own hands and catch the criminals himself by utilizing a high-tech product available on the shelves of the very same store: the DeWalt DS500 Mobilelock GPS Tracking System.
This system can be thought of as a high-tech industrial version of Lo-Jack,
the car recovery system that's been successfully used to recover over
200,000 stolen vehicles since it's introduction. However unlike Lo-Jack,
DeWalt's Mobilelock system also features a small and inconspicuous GPS
receiver that can be remotely triggered to constantly transmit it's exact geographic location on PCS cellular
frequencies. The idea is that you attach a Mobilelock transmitter to a
piece of equipment that is likely to be stolen, like a construction vehicle. If if ever goes missing, you can log
on to a website or call an 800 number to find out exactly where the
transmitter is currently geographically located . Then you can send
your friendly neighborhood policeman or favorite vigilante to confront
the bad guy.
And this is exactly what Chris Rowland did. He placed a DS500 Mobilelock
transmitter (pictured at right) in a Festool case and waited for the thief to strike a
sixth time. When he did, sure enough, he took the Festool case with the
transmitter in it. When he was alerted to the break in, Chris immediately went to his computer, logged on,
and saw that the transmitter was located in an apartment complex just a half mile
from the store. From this point, it was just a matter of getting the cooperation of the local
police to go and investigate. Which they did....and they recovered the
stolen tools and were able to name the key suspect in all six
burglaries although we haven't been able to find out if he has been
caught yet.
We applaud Mr. Rowland's ingenious use of the Mobilelock system to defend his assets. We've long been intrigued by DeWalt's MobilLock antitheft solution and this story just goes to prove the efficacy of it. Given the initial cost of the system and ongoing cellular service fees, it's not for everyone. However, if you have valuable assets that are an appealing target for theft, it's a effective solution that is surely worth considering. On the other hand, vicious guard dogs are also an effective way to thwart would-be thieves.
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