Vanishing act

Finally, in December 1999, Gary Garrard, 35, and Colm McGuiness, 36, were each found guilty of conspiring to handle stolen goods and sentenced to three years in prison. Two Israelis were convicted in Israel.

The two were just the tip of an operational iceberg. From two yards in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, the plant was shipped by container to Israel. Most ended up in the West Bank. Only £300,000 worth was recovered in Israel. Police assumed legitimate freight companies participated unknowingly.

The scale of the gang's activity and the meagre results of Operation Eclipse all point to just how easy it still is for plant thieves. Builders are often criticised for lax security, but there are other important factors that make plant theft a simple and lucrative sideline for organised criminals. Security guards can be bribed and intimidated. With single-key ignition, a lot of driveable machinery is by nature easy to steal. And of course there is a ready international market for cheap, used equipment.

It's a doddle
The biggest factor, however, is that plant thieves don't get caught. Only 10% of stolen plant is recovered, compared with 70% of stolen cars. Stealing plant is virtually consequence-free.

To date contractors have preferred to make claims on their insurance rather than pay for tracking devices or higher rental rates for machinery with immobilisers. But that may change in 2002 because insurance costs are going through the roof.

For instance, as of January 2002, the insurer Royal Sun Alliance raised plant theft premiums by 20%. Brokers report excesses doubling on claims and in some cases tougher policy wording, such as the proviso that plant left unattended is not insured. Also, you're looking at much higher premium loading if you've got a claims history. Some contractors are now finding themselves uninsurable.

For a long time insurers have claimed they couldn't make a profit on the sector because premiums were so low. But those days are over. The collapse of Independent Insurance, the departure of other insurers from the construction market, and the terrorist attacks of September 11 have given those remaining insurers the environment to push rates up.

The insurance crunch is starting to have an effect. Some insurers offer discounts if you install a tracker device. To date that hasn't motivated contractors, probably because it hasn't seemed cost effective – a tracker system costs about £35 per unit per month. That is sure to change this year. An example is Barhale Construction, a Middlesex-based civil engineering contractor, which has just installed 210 tracking devices on moveable plant and commercial vehicles.

Insurance manager Eamonn Johnston says Barhale had suffered plant theft in the past and installing trackers allowed him to save £16,000 on his fleet insurance bill.

The National Plant and Equipment Register, aka The Equipment Register (TER) is another service that could gain traction this year as the industry gets squeezed between thieves and insurers. It was set up in 1995 as a database to help police identify stolen equipment, but so far insurers have stopped short of requiring owners to register with TER.

TER has made an important role for itself in recovering equipment, as evidenced by the fact that TER investigators assisted in Operation Eclipse. TER can step in where police are most vulnerable – identification.

"We could get a call from an officer on the M6 who's pulled over a lorry hauling an excavator. He may not even know where to start looking for serial numbers. It's much more tempting to pull over a car," says Tim Purbrick, TER's managing director.

TER was awarded the job of cleaning up 44,000 plant and equipment theft records on the police national computer. It will integrate the data with its own database. Eventually, TER would like to be notified whenever plant is bought, sold or stolen and the Home Office recommends that anyone buying plant register with TER right away.