The £194,000 car was found in Kent within 3 hours of being stolen, thanks to Tracker’s VHF technology
A Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG worth £194,000 was stolen mid-afternoon in West Sussex, but within 3 hours of its Tracker stolen vehicle recovery (SVR) unit being activated, police had found it 40 miles away in Kent and made an arrest.
The detection of the stolen vehicle was only made possible due to a combination of factors unique to Tracker Network (UK) Ltd – its exclusive partnership with UK police forces and its use of VHF technology. The thieves thought they had outwitted the owner of the Mercedes-Benz by using a ‘jammer’ to block its GPS tracking signal, but Tracker’s VHF technology is immune to GPS jammers and led the police straight to the vehicle’s hidden location.
Clive Wain, Head of Police Liaison at Tracker, explains “Unfortunately, jamming devices are used frequently by thieves to stop a vehicle’s GPS tracking signal being picked up, and a jammer was found in the Mercedes-Benz when it was recovered. However, in this case, the stolen Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG had one of our stolen vehicle recovery units fitted which uses a unique combination of VHF and GPS tracking technology. This meant that whilst the GPS signal was jammed, the VHF signal could still be read by police using the onboard Police Tracker console, providing real-time updates on the vehicle’s location.”
Tracker’s stolen vehicle recovery solutions work like an electronic homing device. A covert transmitter is hidden in one of several dozen places around the vehicle. There is no visible aerial, so the thief won’t know it’s there.
Concludes Clive Wain, “Another great advantage of Tracker’s VHF technology is it aids the location of a vehicle if it's hidden in the likes of a shipping container, a lock-up or in an underground car park. GPS signals simply struggle to be picked up from these places. Not all solutions on the market offer the same level of protection, but Tracker has an unrivalled stolen vehicle recovery rate of more than 95%, with 80% of those stolen vehicles recovered within 24 hours.”
