Greater Manchester – a Crime Hotspot for Plant Theft

Greater Manchester is Crime Hot Spot for Plant Theft

Greater Manchester is a hot spot for the theft of construction plant machinery, figures released by PANIU (The Plant & Agricultural National Intelligence Unit) have revealed.
Throughout 2016, Greater Manchester was Number 1 of the top ten regions with 7% of all plant machinery stolen, such as Mini Excavators, Dumpers, Rollers and Tractors. During 2016, a total of 4,122 items of plant machinery were stolen nationwide, of which 199 thefts were from the Greater Manchester area.
The PANIU Report 2016 details several new trends emerging regarding plant theft, such as an increase in cloned machinery. Fraud is also still prevalent with plant hire companies often targeted. Smaller items of plant machinery are a target for plant thieves, as they can be easily transported away on trailers or inside vehicles such as transit vans.
With our head office based in Denton, Manchester, AMI Group is leading the fight against plant theft in the North West region and across the whole of the UK. A significant proportion of the plant thefts reported to us occur in the Greater Manchester area, and we are able to recover stolen plant machinery thanks to the installation of our high tech tracking devices.
We offer a range of tracking systems – from wireless, battery operated units which have a battery life of up to 20 years and can be transferred from machine to machine in minutes, to wired-in fleet management solutions which can not only locate stolen equipment, but also help reduce business costs and fuel consumption by strategic management and monitoring of fleet activities.