Toyota Camry Stolen from the Streets of Boston Found Hours Later by
- February 22, 2012
- recovery stories
On the evening of January 23, 2012, the owner of a 2006 Toyota Camry parked the vehicle outside of his residence for the night. When he returned to the vehicle the next morning, he discovered that it was missing and immediately reported the theft to the Boston Police Department.
A responding officer filed a stolen vehicle report and relayed the information to the department’s computer operator, who entered the stolen Toyota’s VIN into the state and federal crime databases. This routine entry automatically activated the LoJack transponder hidden in the Toyota, causing it to begin transmitting a silent homing signal.
A short while later, officers from the Boston Police Department and members of the Governor’s Auto Theft Strike Force (GATSF) began picking up the silent LoJack homing signal on Police Tracking Computers installed in their police vehicles. One of the GATSF troopers started to receive a very strong signal in the area of Dorchester Avenue, in the Dorchester section of Boston. Following the computer prompts, he was able to successfully track and then quickly locate the unoccupied stolen vehicle, parked on Bispham Street in Dorchester. The troopers set up a surveillance on the vehicle, in the hope that a suspect(s) would return to the stolen vehicle. However, after staking out the Toyota for several hours without any activity, they had the vehicle towed from the scene for safekeeping until the owner could be notified of its safe recovery.
The LoJack Vehicle Recovery System was installed in the Toyota Camry at the owner’s request on February 2, 2006.