Sterling Tractor Stolen from Roof Company, Stopped by Broward County Deputies Using LoJack, 3 Arrested
- September 22, 2012
- recovery stories
According to sources, on Wednesday morning, August 1, 2012, employees of a roof truss fabrication company arrived at their place of business to discover that it had been burglarized. They found that the chain/lock of the gate had been compromised and that a 2005 White Sterling A9500 Series tractor attached to a flatbed trailer had been stolen. The manager of the company contacted the Delray Beach Police Department to report the theft.
Delray Beach officers verified the theft and had the tractor’s information entered into the state and federal crime computers, which automatically activated the LoJack transponder concealed in the equipment.
Later that morning, a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office auto theft task force detective, picked up the silent LoJack homing signal from the stolen Sterling tractor on their on-board LoJack Police Tracking computer (PTC). Following the directional and audible cues on their PTC’s screen, the officer, along with their backup, located the vehicle, in Delray Beach. After a brief surveillance on the tractor, they observed a suspect climb into the vehicle and drive it to a construction site in Boca Raton. At the site, the thieves attached the tractor to a trailer loaded with rebar. The thieves, along with a “scout” car, left the premises and headed southbound on I-95, headed toward Miami.
As the shipment and thieves were approaching the Broward/Miami-Dade counties boarder, the detectives requested backup from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to perform a “felony stop” on the two vehicles. The deputies turned on their lights near Hallandale Beach Boulevard, but the convoy continued on until they were able to pull over onto the side of the interstate near Miami Gardens Drive in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. The three subjects in the two vehicles were apprehended, arrested, and ultimately transported to the Dade County Jail. The Sterling was recovered, towed to the police impound yard for safekeeping, and removed from federal and state crime computer systems. The “scout” vehicle was also towed to the police impound yard for safekeeping.
The LoJack Vehicle Recovery System was installed in the Sterling A9500 Series tractor on May 23, 2008 and has been protecting it ever since.