Caught himself

Farmer tracks down thief with cameras and GPS transmitter

Symbol camera

(Bild: Dostal Harald)

A farmer from Neumarkt had food stolen day after day from an unlocked garden shed. The farmer then set up wildlife cameras and even attached a GPS transmitter to a chocolate so that he could track down the thief. The police only helped him towards the end of his own investigation.

Drinks and sweets had been stolen from the farmer from Salzburg. Over several nights, a brazen thief forced his way into an outbuilding belonging to the farmer and stole the food. The man from Neumarkt was not going to take this lying down, as reported by ORF.

His suspicion was that it could be children from the neighborhood. But things turned out differently. The wildlife cameras set up showed a man sneaking around the farm with a knife in his hand. 

Police only became active at the end
The photos from the cameras were good, so the farmer alerted the police. They would need the man's face for investigations and, according to ORF, he was told that a video would be helpful. The man from Neumarkt switched from photo to video recording. The thief immediately returned and fell into the "video trap". However, the farmer flashed the police again with the recordings. According to ORF, they only advised him to lock up the garden shed and wait. 

But the farmer wanted to catch the perpetrator himself. He attached a GPS transmitter to a chocolate, tracked the signal and caught the thief at a high stand. Only now did the police become active, sent a special unit and caught the thief: it was a 22-year-old Romanian who is now at large.