Stolen cash recovered using GPS

[Campy]

Hi, I have seen a few articles reporting on stolen cash being recovered as the cashier placed a GPS along with the cash in the robber's bag and as it left a zone, the device was activated. I have spent a few days trying to track down if this is factual and to find vendor who sales such a system that would allow for this, all to reach dead ends.

Do any of you know if such a tiny "strip" or device actually exists or have I just been naive and snookered? If this system does exist, please share where it can be procured.

I really am not a techie but seems to me that this techonlogy is a few years away but hope here is that I am wrong.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Rich

[Curtis Baillie]

Here's a link to just one of many - many places that sell GPS tracking devices. This technology has been available for years. In the early 1990s we were using tracking devices in jewelry stores. There were inserted in the trays of higher priced items. It works.

A quick Google search will provide the info you're looking for.

[SecTrainer]

Rich, when you say "strips" it sounds like you're thinking of EPS systems, and there's nothing like that in the GPS tracking arena.

A GPS tracking device has to include a self-contained transmitter and receiver, which in turn also means batteries. As a result, they're considerably larger than an EPS product strip. The smallest one I'm aware of is shown in the photo. As you can see, it's hardly invisible.



Here are the issues to consider - meaning the things that have to happen for this to work:

1. The business pays a fair amount to purchase the device - or multiple devices, more likely.
2. The business doesn't forget to pay the monthly fee for a tracking host/service, whether used or not.
3. Someone remembers to keep fresh batteries in the device.
4. The device is always in a predetermined location, meaning that no one absently-mindedly moves it, lays something on top of it or otherwise makes it inaccessible for surreptitious access by the clerk being robbed.
5. The panicked clerk remembers to slip the device into the bag with the money when she's being robbed. (Robbers won't usually take the whole cash drawer along with the money.)
6. The robber doesn't see her doing this - and possibly become provoked to become violent.
7. The robber isn't helping himself to the money in the cash drawer. He may not be cooperative enough to throw the device into his bag with the money.
8. The robber doesn't notice this device in the bag and simply heave it out the car window, which would only add that cost to the dollar-loss of the cash.
9. The GPS signal isn't blocked. There are lots of places - even outdoors - where GPS devices can't get "fixes" or transmit their signals.

There are "passive" GPS devices that can be made smaller because they don't transmit their location. They simply receive GPS coordinates and log them for later retrieval from the device itself. Obviously, this wouldn't do much good for tracking a robber.

GPS tracking has a lot of very legitimate uses in terms of recovering stolen property (tractor trailers, construction equipment, farm equipment, etc.), but you'd need to think twice about this one - and whether the real and potential human costs of implementing such a system don't outweigh the (uninsured) dollar loss from robbery.

The universal best rule when it comes to robberies is usually this: Just let the money go and do nothing whatsoever to provoke the robber or impede his escape. That's one reason (along with the list above) that you don't see systems like this being used even by companies that have frequent/high robbery rates.

One situation where this might work would be employee bank transfers - put it in the cash bag during transport and recover it inside the bank (daytime deposit), or from the bank the next day (nighttime). Of course, you'd only track the robber as far as they go before opening the bag and destroying the tracker, but this might be enough.

[Campy]

Curtis and SecTrainer,

Thank you both for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. Appreciate it.

Rich