Skip to main content

Fleet-tracking technology aids arrest of car-theft gang

According to figures published by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, about 150,000 vehicles were stolen in Spain during 2013. According to Spanish communications specialist GMV, most drivers are unaware that a tracking device will make it much harder for thieves. Last November, a vehicle fitted with GMV’s fleet-tracking and -management system Moviloc was stolen in Madrid. The car owner reported the theft to the police and showed them the vehicle’s last recorded position on the tracking device. They w
July 31, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

According to figures published by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, about 150,000 vehicles were stolen in Spain during 2013. According to Spanish communications specialist 55 GMV, most drivers are unaware that a tracking device will make it much harder for thieves.

Last November, a vehicle fitted with GMV’s fleet-tracking and -management system Moviloc was stolen in Madrid. The car owner reported the theft to the police and showed them the vehicle’s last recorded position on the tracking device. They were then able to pinpoint the warehouse where the stolen vehicles were taken before being broken up and taken off to Poland.

The seven-month investigation enabled police to identify parts corresponding to 13 stolen vehicles and arrest two Poles who were working from the warehouse in the industrial estate.

“Moviloc offers a wide range of services and functions to give users exhaustive control over all driver activity, recording, for example, the runs and mileage and also whether the scheduled routes were covered in due time and form, all in real time”, explains Ramón Dávila, product head of Moviloc. “The report offered by this service tells you the number of stops made by any vehicle during any working day, the place and the time each stop lasted. All this information gives an instant snapshot of the vehicle’s movements on any particular day”.

“The onboard equipment is fitted invisibly so that no thief is aware of the tracking device”, explained a police spokesman.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Keeping a weather eye on road conditions
    September 26, 2014
    Drive C2X has shown that advanced warning of poor road conditions could cut fatalities, as David Crawford explains. Connected vehicle (CV)-based warning technologies could mean 6% fewer deaths and 5% fewer injuries in road traffic accidents in Europe, according to the final results of the European Commission (EC) co-funded DRIVE C2X project. According to the European Centre for Information and Communication Technologies (EICT) which provided management support, these “prove that CV systems work and can hav
  • Camera technology a flexible and cost-effective option
    June 7, 2012
    Perceptions of machine vision being an expensive solution are being challenged by developments in both core technologies and ancillaries. Here, Jason Barnes and David Crawford look at the latest developments in the sector. A notable aspect of machine vision is the flexibility it offers in terms of how and how much data is passed around a network. With smart cameras, processing capabilities at the front end mean that only that which is valid need be communicated back to a central processor of any descripti
  • Arrests in forged transport ticket criminal network
    March 27, 2012
    Police in Catalonia, Spain, after a year-long investigation, have arrested ten people involved in a network to forge transport tickets, just as they were preparing to print a million tickets to be used in Barcelona's public transport system. The forged tickets were of a high quality and it is estimated that Barcelona's metro system alone lost at least US$1.6 million due to this scam. Autoridad del Transporte Metropolitano de Barcelona (ATM), the metropolitan transport authority for Barcelona, had already in
  • Managed motorways, hard shoulder running aids safety, saves time
    January 30, 2012
    The announcement that, in 2012/13, work to extend Managed Motorways to Junctions 5-8 of the M6 near Birmingham in the West Midlands is scheduled to start marks the next step for the UK's hard shoulder running concept, first introduced on the M42 in 2006. The M6 scheme is in fact one of several announced; over the next few years work will start on applying Managed Motorways to various sections of the M1, M25 London Orbital, M60 and M62. According to Paul Unwin, senior project manager with the Highways Agency