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GPS systems, tractors and plant machinery are all targeted by criminals and usually shipped to other countries to be sold to unsuspecting farmers.
In the case of machinery, criminals involved in the Irish gang being investigated by Belgian and Irish police often attempt to register tractors in Northern Ireland.
One of their favourite tricks is to go into a machinery dealer and purchase something small like grease gun and check out the place
A Garda source from the Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigations Unit confirmed that stolen GPS systems have been found online. He also outlined a number of the methods criminals use for stealing machinery.
“One of their favourite tricks is to go into a machinery dealer and purchase something small like grease gun and check out the place,” he said.
“Then they’ll come back in the dead of night and cut the fence and steal machinery, usually two tractors together.
“In recent years the diagnostics on tractors have got better, making them harder to steal.”
He explained that criminals involved in the gang have tried to register stolen tractors in Northern Ireland using fake documents and aliases.
Sophisticated
Stolen machinery has also been previously shipped through ports across Europe according to the Garda, but he added that this was becoming harder to do as systems became more sophisticated.
The difficulty in shipping and registering larger machinery could explain why criminals appear to have switched to smaller, high-value GPS systems.
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