Thieving scum - stuff to watch out for

ShawWellPete

ShawWellPete

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Pete
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Unfortunately while the house was empty today (for about an hour) some scumbags broke in and stole what they could lay their hands on.

As well as lots of sentimental stuff, including a charm bracelet my wife got when she was a kid and the gold watch my grandad got when he retired the *******s took the following

Macbook pro with external 640gig Toughdrive hard drive
Nikon 14-24 2.8
Nikon 24-70 2.8
Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR
Nikon 1.4x t/c
Nikon 135mm F2 DC
Nikon SB-900
1 pocketwizard
Thinktank Urban Disguise bag (60 I think)
Panasonic 14-42 kit lens

My D700 and grip was boxed up ready to send off for repair so was missed and the GF-1 with 20mm and Nikon 50mm 1.4 with adapter was with me.

The lenses were all marked with "smart water" which is like a dab of glue that forensically marks them and, I think, they all had a "Thieves Beware SMARTWATER forensically coded" sticker. Ironic eh?

All the lenses are registered with Nikon so at least the serial numbers are all logged.

I thought I would post this on the off chance that anybody sees a job lot of nice glass offered for sale. I am in the Sevenoaks area in Kent.
 
Sorry to hear about your loss, great move with the Smartwater - hope you get them back (or good insurance).
 
Oh shucks.

Fairly crappy thing to come home to.

Hope you get things sorted.
 
Sorry to hear about this Pete. No insurance can replace the sentimental items, I just hope the police can find who did it.
 
wisemen said:
Sorry to hear about this Pete. No insurance can replace the sentimental items, I just hope the police can find who did it.
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I work on a Burglary Squad in Central London. I hate burglars with a passion, but sadly we (along with police everywhere) have a very low detection & conviction rate for Burglary. We managed to clear up about 16% of all our crimes last year, which made us 3rd best in the whole of the Met - 32 boroughs. Unfortunately, around 11 percentage points of those were "TIC's" - admissions made long after the offence - in order to try and curry some kind of favour with a sentencing judge. Only around 5% of burglaries are actually "solved". It may sound really low, but even in the USA the detection rate is only 9%, and they include vehicle crime in their definition of Burglary - something which we are generally far better at solving. Sadly, an awful lot of cases end up charged only as Handling Stolen Goods, which attracts a much lesser penalty, and only leaves thieves free to commit more burglaries.

There are just too many people out there willing to turn a blind eye to stolen goods - shops included. Smartwater is useful, though - never seen it used on such small objects before, but it's very good stuff.
 
Photo Plod said:
I work on a Burglary Squad in Central London. I hate burglars with a passion, but sadly we (along with police everywhere) have a very low detection & conviction rate for Burglary. We managed to clear up about 16% of all our crimes last year, which made us 3rd best in the whole of the Met - 32 boroughs. Unfortunately, around 11 percentage points of those were "TIC's" - admissions made long after the offence - in order to try and curry some kind of favour with a sentencing judge. Only around 5% of burglaries are actually "solved". It may sound really low, but even in the USA the detection rate is only 9%, and they include vehicle crime in their definition of Burglary - something which we are generally far better at solving. Sadly, an awful lot of cases end up charged only as Handling Stolen Goods, which attracts a much lesser penalty, and only leaves thieves free to commit more burglaries.

There are just too many people out there willing to turn a blind eye to stolen goods - shops included. Smartwater is useful, though - never seen it used on such small objects before, but it's very good stuff.
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OP, sorry to hear about it :( Hope everything's ok with insurance etc...

Photo Plod, if you don't mind me dragging just a little bit of your work home with you, how useful would you regard the microdot based systems? Do you routinely search seized items for stickers saying that they're marked with such systems etc? I did some work for local police here and they gave me a microdot set - I've put it on etcetc, but purely out of curiosity, how useful are these in the real world?
 
Woah thats awful! I hope the police find who ever nicked your stuff.
We've got a lot of our stuff forensically coded too, with signs on all the doors with SelectaDNA. I live in Kent as well, and I'm getting a bit worried about getting burgled so I'll be locking my stuff away when I go out tomorrow. I hope everything gets sorted for you a well.
 
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That's awful! Keep an eye on ebay perhaps?
 
I feel for you Pete, make sure the Mrs is stress free through all this, what a horrible experience.
 
So sorry to hear this.... :(

Seems there is alot of this sort of thing going around these days....people think thy cn break in and take your hard earned posessions away from you! :(

Hope you had backups of all your stuff, and insurance does what its meant to and coughs up for new equipment....
 
I went through this one myself last year so I feel for you.... My only consolation was that my better half was away. I looked for a long time for my stuff locally, pawn shops, Loot, Ebay etc but not a sniff oddly enough.
 
Sorry to hear about the break in, SmartWater was a very smart (pun intended) way to go.

For anyone who doesn't know smartwater has specific identifiable dna in each application. Anyone who handles ShawWellPetes lenses will have some of the dna on them traceable directly to that lens, no question no excuse.
 
Steep said:
Sorry to hear about the break in, SmartWater was a very smart (pun intended) way to go.

For anyone who doesn't know smartwater has specific identifiable dna in each application. Anyone who handles ShawWellPetes lenses will have some of the dna on them traceable directly to that lens, no question no excuse.
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Thanks, I also registered all my Lenses with Nikon so hopefully that'll help. The loss adjuster is coming around tomorrow so I'm preparing myself for excuses...
 
ShawWellPete said:
Thanks, I also registered all my Lenses with Nikon so hopefully that'll help. The loss adjuster is coming around tomorrow so I'm preparing myself for excuses...
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Hope the adjuster is a fair minded soul and that you get suitable replacements for that which is replaceable. Send my commiserations about the sentimental stuff...that really is a <banned rude word>
 
It might have been said a million times before mate , but keep your eye open on ebay. Hope things work out for you.
 
I know exactly how you feel mate! I had this exact situation 6 months ago.

In my case the police arrested 3 guys, were still waiting for anything to happen, but fingers crossed!

The way i looked at it was at least noone was hurt, especially as we were all asleep upstairs!
 
Sorry to hear of your plight.
You are not the first to announce the theft of kit and no doubt you will not be the last.
I read your post yesterday and on the strength of that I ordered a heavy safe, been wanting one for some time and this just made my mind up for me.
 
Sorry to hear about your burglary. I know how upsetting it can be as I was burgled too.

Well done for having all your stuff marked. Its made me think I should do the same.

I hope you get your stuff back or at least proper compensation
 
Thanks again for the comments guys

retired said:
Sorry to hear of your plight.
You are not the first to announce the theft of kit and no doubt you will not be the last.
I read your post yesterday and on the strength of that I ordered a heavy safe, been wanting one for some time and this just made my mind up for me.
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Not sure about the safe, it looks like the were looking for a safe in our house with bookshelves emptied, for example.

My worry with safes is that if they find it and can't open it they may wait for someone to get home in order to get it open. I'd rather they took what they wanted and ****ed off.
 
ShawWellPete said:
My worry with safes is that if they find it and can't open it they may wait for someone to get home in order to get it open. I'd rather they took what they wanted and ****ed off.
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X2!

I'd rather them walking away with bits as opposed to forcing someone to open the safe/give them the combination! :shake::gag::thumbsdown:
 
Really sorry to hear that, Pete - as well as the obvious loss, you just feel so violated that strangers have been raking around your personal items. B'stards, the lot of them...
 
You never guess what?

They think they've caught them.

:)

But the stuff has nearly all gone

:(

But the insurance company is being very helpful and it looks like they'll payout new for old

:)
 
itsdavedotnet said:
OP, sorry to hear about it :( Hope everything's ok with insurance etc...

Photo Plod, if you don't mind me dragging just a little bit of your work home with you, how useful would you regard the microdot based systems? Do you routinely search seized items for stickers saying that they're marked with such systems etc? I did some work for local police here and they gave me a microdot set - I've put it on etcetc, but purely out of curiosity, how useful are these in the real world?
Click to expand...

If I saw a sticker on a product that said it was protected by a Microdot, or came across one, I'd be straight onto the manufacturer to see how I could go about viewing it - assuming a normal magnifier wouldn't be enough. We will pursue any identifiable stolen property to the ends of the earth - it may only result in a Handling Stolen Goods charge, but we'll take whatever we can get with burglars.

Same goes for any kind of tag, serial number - anything - so, yes - a microdot system would be very useful, so long as we know to look for one! I've not come across one for household property, but have retrieved a few stolen vehicles through Data Dots, which are very similar things.
 
ShawWellPete said:
You never guess what?

They think they've caught them.

:)

But the stuff has nearly all gone

:(

But the insurance company is being very helpful and it looks like they'll payout new for old

:)
Click to expand...

Glad to see you have half a smile back Pete, hope you keep your chin up throughout and a magistrate will do you justice.
 
Photo Plod said:
If I saw a sticker on a product that said it was protected by a Microdot, or came across one, I'd be straight onto the manufacturer to see how I could go about viewing it - assuming a normal magnifier wouldn't be enough. We will pursue any identifiable stolen property to the ends of the earth - it may only result in a Handling Stolen Goods charge, but we'll take whatever we can get with burglars.

Same goes for any kind of tag, serial number - anything - so, yes - a microdot system would be very useful, so long as we know to look for one! I've not come across one for household property, but have retrieved a few stolen vehicles through Data Dots, which are very similar things.
Click to expand...

There has been a lot of stick given to the police in this and other photo forums recently. In this case they have been fantastic and they are as pleased as we are to be getting an arrest.

Lessons learnt

1 I was an idiot for not always putting on the alarm when leaving the house

2 I dun good in labelling my stuff with smart water and registering all my lenses with Nikon. When the loss adjuster came around today that made a lot of differencel.

tiler65 said:
Glad to see you have half a smile back Pete, hope you keep your chin up throughout and a magistrate will do you justice.
Click to expand...

Thanks Tom
 
ShawWellPete said:
There has been a lot of stick given to the police in this and other photo forums recently. In this case they have been fantastic and they are as pleased as we are to be getting an arrest.

Lessons learnt

1 I was an idiot for not always putting on the alarm when leaving the house

2 I dun good in labelling my stuff with smart water and registering all my lenses with Nikon. When the loss adjuster came around today that made a lot of differencel.



Thanks Tom
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Good result, Pete - glad to hear they caught him and you've got some property back. Getting anything back from a burglary is a rare result :thumbs:
 
Excellent outcome - I'd be happier that they'd been caught than anything else to be honest (as long as the insurance covers the loss...lol)...

Now - Shariia Penalties anyone?

Slag other religious outlooks off all you like but in some areas they have the edge on us...
 
A word on Smartwater, you can buy a kit, either Smartwater or Selectadna for £50-60 that will mark and protect 30-50 items in your house. Daft not to go for it imo.
 
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