The threat of theft is always looming at unsecured businesses & commercial properties, and has recently been heating up – even as the weather cools, and summer turns to fall in Canada. Break & entry, material, tool & equipment, and precious metal thefts have been on the rise at businesses across the country over the past month. Proactive security solutions have never been more important for businesses to protect the valuable items that are contained within, and to keep normal business operations moving forward, day-to-day.
Thefts at Commercial Properties & Businesses have been heating up!
Over the first weekend of October, Police responded to a report of break & entry at a business compound in the northeast end of Guelph, Ontario. Staff arrived on Monday morning to begin their workday only to find their vehicles badly damaged, with smashed windows & pried doors – rendering them inoperable. Within the eight work vehicles, full toolkits including saws, shears, drills, and even nitrogen cylinders were discovered to be stolen – estimated to be valued at over $25,000, with the vehicles suffering damages estimated at over $12,000. Two men were caught on a non-monitored, reactive video surveillance system, and descriptions were provided to the public in hopes of turning up additional information leading to their arrests. (1)
At approximately 2:00am, on the morning of September 13th, Barrie Police responded to an alarm at a business plaza on the southwest side of the city. Upon arriving on scene, they discovered a badly damaged glass door. Through investigation, two men were discovered in video surveillance footage to have forcibly entered into the premises, stealing high-value collectibles from the business. (2)
This trend has been ongoing, and has been steadily increasing as of late. The RCMP had reported that over the course of 1 week in mid-September, three break & enters occurred at different businesses in St. Albert, Alberta, a small suburb northwest of Edmonton (3) – resulting in damaged property, stolen equipment, & cash.
However, tools, materials, inventory, & cash aren’t the only thing criminals are targeting in their brazen thefts. In the Kawartha Lakes town of Lindsay, Police reported thefts of catalytic converters (containing high-value precious metals) occurring sometime overnight, from commercial vehicles at a company property at the end of August (4).
Furthermore, in early September, a grocery store in the east end of Hamilton, Ontario suffered a major loss after a theft was committed, targeting its roof-top refrigeration system. The Hamilton Police reported approximately $50,000 worth of copper lines were stolen from the Queenston Rd grocery store. The store also suffered additional losses beyond the value of copper, as they had to remove all perishable food & meat from their shelves – resulting in a loss of product due to spoilage, and the would-be sales generated from their placement. The Police also reported that the security cameras installed did not capture any images of who had stolen the copper lines (5). This is a major cause for concern…
The threat of theft at businesses is always present, and this criminal act can not only create exorbitant costs for replacing stolen property & repairing damage, but can also cause major delays & disruption to your operations. What is the best approach to preventing commercial property theft, and what steps are recommended to stop it from happening to your business?
A Proactive Approach to Security is critical to protect your Business.
The majority of the aforementioned instances of theft in the past month have occurred at businesses with some semblance of security deployed. However, these systems are reactionary in nature, and cannot prevent theft from occurring; they can only document what has happened, and upon reviewing footage – hopefully provide context & the details necessary to apprehend the perpetrators after the fact.
In order to prevent these thefts from occurring, a different approach must be taken to protect your business & property. Our proactive security services are focused on detecting & deterring unwanted behavior before it occurs. Utilizing experience and expertise, our team of security professionals will work to identify areas of importance, as well as the threats and vulnerabilities of a property in order to develop a strategic plan for protection. The deployment of our industry leading live video monitoring units, using patented Cellular LTE communications, provide flexibility for installation, ample perimeter coverage, and an expansive view of areas requiring the most protection.
Each of our remote monitoring units comes standard equipped with high-resolution stationary cameras for situational awareness & detection, and a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera that is capable of zooming in great distances to gather specific details & descriptions of criminals, and the events unfolding. With the assistance of proprietary Artificial Intelligence, team members within our UL Certified Live Video Monitoring Center are able to identify a suspect, and proactively deter them from committing a crime.
Using voice commands issued from our live communications speakers, our team is able to inform the would-be criminal that they are entering an off-limits site, all actions are monitored & recorded, and Police will be dispatched if they proceed. For a visual deterrence, as criminals often prefer to work inconspicuously, our team will activate our high-visibility blue LED strobe lights that draw attention to the location. If the trespasser cannot be deterred through these means, our team immediately dispatches local Police and provides them with the critical details needed to assist in their apprehension.
As Police are enroute to the location, our Operators continue to monitor the suspect and gather any additional details that will assist Police with their apprehension, & evidence to be leveraged in subsequent court proceedings. Once the security threat is contained, our team provides all of the information related to the incident to you via our security information reporting platform, syncroReports. This platform is your private access point to all of the in-depth reports from your property, robust analytics, and even PTZ camera control & live video feeds streaming directly from our security units.
As theft continues to rise at businesses across Canada, a proactive approach to security has never been more important. Providing protection of property & inventory, helping maintain day-to-day business operations by avoiding disruptions, and ultimately providing peace of mind is the foundation that our proactive monitoring solutions & technology are built upon.
Resources:
- “$25,000 in tools stolen, another $12,000 in damage to work vans” Guelph Today, October 3rd, 2022
- “Two suspects sought in Barrie business break-in and theft” Kim Phillips, CTV News, September 29th, 2022
- “RCMP – Investigate Break, Enter and Theft at Local Business – UPDATE” St. Albert RCMP, Sept 21, 2022
- “Police investigate theft of catalytic converters from vehicles parked at Lindsay business” The Star, September 1, 2022
- “Hamilton police say $50K worth of copper lines stolen at No Frills” Amanda Pope, CHCH, September 9th, 2022