Ring Power’s technology team proved the value of connected assets by helping the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department recover a Cat 299 after it was stolen from a customer’s worksite in September.
Steve Borth of PCS Civil called Jason Marmino (Tampa Technology Sales Rep) at 6 a.m. one morning with a big problem.
“He said, ‘my guy showed up at the site and the machine was just gone’ and they had already checked ProductLink,” Marmino said. “What had happened was they had cut the wires for the ProductLink and yanked it all out.”
Marmino and PCS Civil had a backup plan though. They had previously had Ring Power install AT100 units on both the stolen 299 skid steer and the trailer it was on—a fact the thieves had not thought about.
The AT100 is a wireless, battery-powered asset tracker…
Marmino activated the theft tracker on the AT100 and immediately got an idea of where the machine had been taken.
“It was just pinging away, so I pulled it up on the satellite image and it was somewhere out in the middle of nowhere near Apopka,” Marmino said.
The customer and one of his employees drove out to the property where the stolen machine was thought to be located, but couldn’t see it from the road. The police arrived shortly after and sent a drone with camera above the property to see if they could get eyes on the customer’s equipment. Sure enough, there it was in the backyard on its trailer.
From there, police swarmed the scene, took the thief into custody and recovered PCS Civil’s stolen skid steer. An investigation into the property also recovered a large amount of illegal narcotics.
Because of Ring Power and the connectivity our technology team can provide our customers, police took a criminal off the streets and PCS Civil reclaimed $135,000 worth of equipment.