Heavy equipment theft and recovery video

[LittleLebowski]

Pennsylvania


https://youtu.be/SU3kldKNY7w

[snow white]

Happy they got that back. A few years ago in my area there was a full size caterpillar backhoe stolen from the side of the road in a construction site. Also about ten years ago there was a two story tall wooden Santa that was stolen. Big mystery, reward offered for the Santa but nobody was ever caught. I have no idea how that was pulled off this thing was humongous.

[Irelander]

Glad the thief was an idiot and this had a happy ending. Messicks is good people. They have helped me a few times with my Kubota.

[11B10]

Glad the thief was an idiot and this had a happy ending. Messicks is good people. They have helped me a few times with my Kubota.



Irelander - I am virtually surrounded by Messick's and have several friends who are farmers....plus a nephew who often does jobs requiring machinery like this. All of them have the same opinion of Messick's. Glad they were able to recover their equipment.

[HCM]

The Auto Theft Task Force guys in my city tell me the number one most stolen vehicle in our area is bobcats.

[ccmdfd]

When I was in med school we had a police LT killed when some teans broke into a road grader and ran into his patrol car.

[Darth_Uno]

The Auto Theft Task Force guys in my city tell the number one most stolen vehicle in our area is bobcats.

We had our Bobcat and trailer stolen a while back. Right off our jobsite in the middle of a Sunday. The neighbors watched them load it up and didn't think anything of it.

We pretty much knew who did it, but...no proof. The guy got caught later with a bunch of other stolen equipment (not ours though).

[John Hearne]

Several years back, a rented piece of equipment was stolen from a road construction site. One of my guys had worked for an equipment rental company and knew that some of the more expensive stuff had GPS trackers. When they check the stolen piece had a tracker and showed it in a rural county. Armed with a search warrant, they went to the location. They ended up recovering over a million dollars of stolen equipment. The thief had been working three different states - MS, AL, and Louisiana for years. Shockingly, they recovered drugs and firearms which were a no-go as the owner was already a convicted felon.

[Welder]

I've got one of the Kubota articulated wheel loaders and often use Messick's for parts because my local Kubota dealers are only able to get parts for the ag line, not the industrial line. Messick's has been good to deal with and I'm glad they caught those fools.

Heavy equipment is ridiculously easy to steal. My job often includes the need to either work on it, use it, or move it out of the way and so I've got a keyring in each truck which will start probably 90% of the equipment on jobsites in my area. There are keypad equipped machines as noted in the video, but they're not very common yet in my area. Or the code is never reset from "1111" or "1234."

When I leave my own equipment on a site, I disable it. My 12K forklift which weighs 18,000 lbs and was built in 1976 has only been on my own property once in the last five years....it and it's trailer just live wherever it's being used. The trailer is an air-brake trailer which eliminates most thieves' chances at it, but the forklift's ignition switch uses the common old-style flat lawnmower key LOL. Luckily there are other ways to disable that machine.

[mmc45414]

Glad they got their skid steer back but the poor schumk that also got his trailer stolen is just screwed. I probably know more about trailers than equipment, and I wondered at the beginning of the video how they were going to haul it.

[AKDoug]

Glad they got their skid steer back but the poor schumk that also got his trailer stolen is just screwed. I probably know more about trailers than equipment, and I wondered at the beginning of the video how they were going to haul it. I was the same way.. I know a lot about equipment and trailers. I was going.. oh shit they're going to put that in a 7K capacity enclosed.

[mmc45414]

I was the same way.. I know a lot about equipment and trailers. I was going.. oh shit they're going to put that in a 7K capacity enclosed.
I was sorta thinking "What are they going to steal that is all that valuable with that little trailer?..."