DATATAG AND KENT POLICE JOIN FORCES AT MCE INSURANCE BRITISH SUPERBIKE FINAL ROUND
At the final round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship held at the famous Kent Brands Hatch Circuit, Datatag and Kent Police, supported by the Kent and Medway Safety Camera Partnership undertook the last of this season’s bike scanning operations on behalf of the industry’s MASTER Security Scheme.
During the weekend over a thousand machines were scanned in an operation aimed at not only deterring theft from the circuit but also to check if any machines were flagged as stolen on Datatag’s secure database.
Something which surprised the team was the number of keys found which had been left in the ignition – 6. Clearly fans desperate to get to the action!
More serious was one bike which raised suspicions, a black Yamaha YZF-R6, a common sight at race meetings. This particular machine however, when scanned by the Team returned an RFID chip number which was showing as stolen on the Datatag database. On further inspection it was discovered that other parts were identified as being from the same stolen machine. The frame however, was legitimate, indicating that although purchased in good faith this machine had been built up using stolen parts – a common practice among bike thieves.
Datatag’s Chris Harrison said ‘This discovery highlights the issue of criminals building bikes up around legitimate frames using stolen parts and emphasises the need for everyone when buying second hand to check frame and engine numbers to ensure they match. The Datatag technologies found on this bike have confirmed without doubt that it has been made up of stolen parts.’
PC Tony Green of Kent Police said ‘Working with Datatag and MSV, supported by the Kent and Medway Safety Camera Partnership, we were able to provide a presence on the roads and car parks at Brands Hatch, during which a motorcycle was identified by Datatag markings as having stolen parts. We are currently conducting enquiries in regard to the theft and subsequent ringing of its identity.’
The innocent owner was understandably very distressed on discovering these issues with his bike and that fact that it could be seized by the police. The owner had purchased the machine second hand privately from an Internet site just 12 months previously and had no idea it was built using stolen parts saying, ‘I only passed my test in September and this was my first ‘big’ bike. The guy I bought it off said he had to sell it as his missus had blown up her car! I’ve had to cancel my insurance and SORN the bike and now I’m just waiting to see if I’m going to lose it.’ he went on to say ‘I’m seriously out of pocket if I do as I can’t think I’ll get anything back. I even had the bike MOT’d and they never picked up on anything. One thing’s for sure - I’ll be checking engine and frame numbers as well as everything else next time!’
Kent Police is continuing its investigations.
This case highlights the benefit that the MASTER Scheme provides in ensuring a bikes true identity can be determined and that when buying second hand riders should always check chassis, engine and MASTER Scheme numbers.
DATATAG ID Ltd
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www.cesarscheme.org
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The Official CESAR Scheme and MASTER Security Scheme powered by Datatag
Like all of the best inventions and ideas, the concept of Datatag is simple but utilizes state of the art identification technologies to permanently mark and protect your property. Datatag makes your vehicles and property identifiable to the Police in such a way that is virtually impossible for a thief to defeat therefore, the risk involved in stealing this marked property becomes high to the criminals who tend to avoid stealing the property in the first place.
Criminals prefer to steal property where they can easily remove or change the original manufacturer's identification numbers or marks. Tampering with these important identification numbers makes the stolen property less likely to be identified and hinders the police in tracing the real owner.
Datatag changes this, our systems can include literally thousands of unique identification marks or tags which can be permanently hidden within your property. A thief now has the impossible task of removing every single identification mark without damaging the stolen property to avoid the risk of detection whereas a Police Officer now only needs to locate and identify one or two of the marks to assist with a prosecution.
Datatag has made a major impact on reducing theft and our award winning systems are used to deter theft but increasingly they are being used as a valuable asset tracking system.
