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Visual verification works

It is widely known that used copper commands a high price on the re-sale market worldwide, however it turned out to be far higher than expected for thieves who broke into a recycling centre in Denmark to steal copper-based cables. The thieves had taken action to bypass the CCTV system but ended up revealing themselves anyway, thanks to a Visonic RealAlarm visual alarm verification system – ending with their capture and arrest.

Lars Ellesgaard, from ADI Denmark, tells the story: “Almsten Sikring, one of my customers, wanted to test the PowerMaster-10 security system with RealAlarm visual alarm verification at a recycle centre that was being targeted by night-time thieves stealing cables in order to get copper,” says Ellesgaard.

“The customer made a box for a Next CAM detector, so that the detector could sit outside on the building. We installed a PowerMaster-10 control panel with wireless connection to three Next CAM PG2 detectors. The panel is connected to our PowerManage server at the ADI central monitoring station, enabling our customer to receive alerts when the alarm is activated.”

Security system installed in the right place, at the right time.

The action began right away, with an alarm activated on the first night after the system was installed. “In the alert that was sent in an e-mail to the monitoring station, the team could see three thieves walk around in front of the Next CAM detector,” recalls Ellesgaard. “The fun part is that the recycling centre had a CCTV system in the building and on one of the video clips from the Next CAM, they saw one of the thieves with a covered face walk to the CCTV camera and tip it downward, remove the cover from his face, and then look straight up at the Next CAM (which got a good picture of him) and walk away. He thought the Next CAM was just a regular PIR detector.”

The thieves managed to get away that night, but their freedom was short-lived.

“Two nights later there was an alarm again, and this time a guard and the police were ready and showed up with three dogs. Two thieves were captured in a little forest next to the recycling centre and the third thief was captured two blocks away by the dogs,” reports Ellesgaard.

ADI Denmark moved the RealAlarm system and three Next CAMs to another recycling centre owned by the same customer. There too, thanks to the visual alarm verification system, three more thieves were captured, along with two girls who were waiting nearby in their getaway car.

Having caught two teams of thieves red-handed, the recycling centre management is planning to install RealAlarm with the Powermaster-10 control panel and Next CAM detectors at another five of its sites around Denmark.

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