SmartWater partners with Vantage England & Wales to reduce GPS theft and rural crime
Risk management company, The SmartWater Group, has teamed up with Vantage England & Wales to help protect its agricultural customers from rural crime.
Image courtesy SmartWater
As a result of the partnership, SmartWater Technology, a division of The SmartWater Group, will supply forensic marking liquid for Vantage’s Trimble agricultural portfolio, including advanced navigation and machine control systems designed specifically for farming use.
Each Trimble product comes with a bottle of SmartTrace liquid with a unique forensic code. All the user needs to do is to apply this to their asset using the syringe provided and register the individual code on the national database.
Also provided with the SmartTrace liquid are deterrent stickers that can be applied to each of the Trimble brand products. If in the event a stolen item is recovered it can instantly be tracked back to its owners via the database which is accessible to the police.
Gary Higgins, COO of SmartWater Technology division, said: “We are delighted to be working with and supporting Vantage England and Wales with this industry first venture. Valuable assets will now be forensically marked, making them uniquely identifiable and therefore less attractive to thieves. With hundreds of criminal convictions to date and a 100% conviction rate in court, criminals are aware of the power of SmartWater to categorically link them to their crimes.”
Mark Griffiths, National Sales Manager at Vantage England & Wales Ltd, added: “We at Vantage needed a deterrent to protect our customers equipment, we chose SmartWater as it is used in many industries including banking, retail and construction. Being able to apply a product meeting specification for these industries and bringing it to UK agriculture made complete sense and has been well received by our customers. Our product association with SmartWater will not only deter thieves, but it gives our customers confidence that we can support them throughout the process should the worst happen.”
SmartWater forensic solution is currently the only system that is compliant with the HO Forensic Science Regulators Code of Practice which means it is admissible in Court as evidence.
Rural crime in England hit an eight-year peak last year, rising by 9% on the previous year. Costing businesses around £46m in losses, the rise was partially driven by organised gangs targeting expensive vehicles like tractors and quad bikes.