GPS Device Leads Police To Home Of Thieves

Ruu_Old

More stupid criminals *boggle*

Three thieves who allegedly stole 14 global positioning system devices didn't get away with their crime for long. The devices led police right to their home.

Town officials said the thieves didn't even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell.

According to Suffolk County police, the GPS devices were stolen Monday night from the Town of Babylon Public Works garage in Lindenhurst. The town immediately tapped its GPS system, and it showed that one of the devices was inside a house. Police said that when they arrived there, Kurt Husfeldt, 46, had the device in his hands.

Husfeldt was charged with criminal possession of stolen property. His 13-year-old son also was arrested on grand larceny charges.

Town officials said the boy committed the burglary with Steven Mangiapanella, 20, also of Lindenhurst. He was charged with grand larceny.

Babylon installed 300 GPS devices in snow plows, dump trucks, street sweepers and other vehicles last January.

Adam

I don't get the pointless fact at the end... who cares??

Otherwise, lovely find Ruu, tickles me just the right way at this time of the morning!

BrokenArrows

lol

what muppets. how did they no know what they were stealing.

User45701

ye saw that story on shoutwire a few days ago.
a stories like this always remind me of Americas dumbest criminals when i was a kid

Mossy Monk

BrokenArrows wrote:

lol

what muppets. how did they no know what they were stealing.

i wouldnt know what a gps system looked like either

Black Swan

GPS = Goto Prison System?






.

Hagar

Wasn't there a similar story some time ago about a guy who stole an inflatable life-raft from an aircraft? He wanted it to go fishing. As soon as he used it the automatic distress beacon was triggered. The signal identified the aircraft and the current location of the liferaft. What a gobsheen.

Sam Vimes

the story sounds a bit fishy to me. gps devices are receivers only. they don't transmit their coordinates. they display their location on-screen but don't broadcast it for the police to pick up. unless these were specialised ones that broadcast their location for some reason.

and they don't really work indoors because they need a clear view of the sky. mine doesn't anyway so the idea that they were receiving and broadcasting their position from inside a house is even more fishy

aidan_walsh

Commander Vimes wrote:

the story sounds a bit fishy to me. gps devices are receivers only. they don't transmit their coordinates. they display their location on-screen but don't broadcast it for the police to pick up. unless these were specialised ones that broadcast their location for some reason.

and they don't really work indoors because they need a clear view of the sky. mine doesn't anyway so the idea that they were receiving and broadcasting their position from inside a house is even more fishy

Of course, they could just be more sophisticated than yours is.

Sam Vimes

aidan_walsh wrote:

Of course, they could just be more sophisticated than yours is.

the signal is broadcast from satellites. it needs the signals from three satellites to triangulate its position. doesn't really matter how sophisticated the device is, if the house blocks the signals reaching it, its not going to know its location.

having said that, they could have had better receivers than mine so it being received in a house doesn't make it 100% definitely wrong. they could have also gone outside with it for a minute which would allow it to find itself. the thing that makes it really fishy is how the police could find them. with hagar's example, those life rafts are designed to be found by rescuers and so have built-in transmitters which broadcast their location. that's not what gps devices are for. they tell you where you are, they don't tell everyone else where you are

astrofool

Babylon installed 300 GPS devices in snow plows, dump trucks, street sweepers and other vehicles last January.

That line there tells you that these devices are intended to transmit data back.

Hagar

TBH I think this is a case of very bad reporting. The devices stolen must have been "anti-theft location transponders" nor "GPS devices". The reporter doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground. GPS devices are passive, these transponders are active and broadcast a "here I am" signal once activated. They are commonly concealed in high value cars like Rolls Royce, Bentleys or other high value property and once the car/property is reported stolen a signal is broadcast by the security firm which activates the transponder. It then continuously broadcasts its position until it is found and deactivated or its battery dies.

Babylon installed 300 GPS devices in snow plows, dump trucks, street sweepers and other vehicles last January.

Plainly it was anti-theft transponders in question as the devices had been installed to protect this equipment from theft. Not much call for GPS in a road-sweeper really.