Man used tracker to help police from 'thousands of miles away'

Man used a tracking device to find his stolen tent box while travelling in Peru before police stormed a property, finding 100 ecstasy tablets. Merseyside Police confirmed a man had loaned his car to his dad while he was on holiday but the tent box on the vehicle was stolen while in Birkdale.

Officers were informed of the theft yesterday, Thursday, November 14, and luckily, the victim had a tracker on the box, meaning he was able to inform police of its precise location in Formby. The box was found attached to a Land Rover which was forensically recovered from an address.

When police searched the property they also found around 100 suspected ecstasy tablets. A 35-year-old man from Formby was arrested on suspicion of theft from a motor vehicle and possession with intent to supply class A drugs. He had been taken to a police station for questioning and remains in custody.

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Chief Inspector Rob Budden said: "This was an excellent use of technology from the vehicle owner, who was able to follow the tent box from thousands of miles away and allow us to take swift action to make an arrest. We will now be investigating the man arrested for this and drugs offences.

“Using a tracker on valuable items should act as a powerful deterrent to those opportunistic criminals who regard theft as easy pickings, and who wrongly think they will evade detection. We will do all we can to investigate such offences and target offenders, whose actions cause stress, inconvenience and financial burden to victims.

“We'd encourage anyone with the means to do so to consider trackers and other security measures to give you increased peace of mind, and make Merseyside a difficult place for would-be thieves to operate.

“Crime prevention advice is also available on our force website: Preventing car and vehicle theft | Crime Prevention | Merseyside Police

Anyone with information on theft of or from vehicles should contact Merseyside Police social media desk via X @MerPolCC or Facebook ‘Merseyside Police Contact Centre’. You can also call 101 quoting incident reference 24000967400 or contact the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111, or via their website here: https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/forms/give-information-anonymously. Always call 999 if a crime is in progress.