Danbury police say global positioning systems disappearing at near-epidemic rates
 
In the 1980s, it was car stereos and high-end radios. In the 1990s, it was air bags.

But halfway through the first decade of the 21st century, high-tech navigation systems for automobiles have become the popular target of people who make their money the old-fashioned way, by stealing them.

Global positioning systems have been disappearing from cars and trucks in Danbury and elsewhere at near-epidemic rates, and the only thing the thieves are leaving behind are pieces of broken glass for victims and their insurance companies to clean up.

Frank Scafidi, spokesman for the Chicago-based National Insurance Crime Bureau said his group doesn't yet keep statistics on GPS thefts. But that's likely to change as more and more vehicle owners install them.

"It's a pretty safe statement that whatever can be removed from a vehicle will be removed. It's the latest gadget, it's not too hard to steal and there's a market for them," Scafidi said.

In the past two weeks, Danbury police have reported at least eight smash-and-grab burglaries in which GPS devices appear to have been among the items taken.

In the latest incident on Sunday, a navigation system valued at $1,100 was taken from a car parked outside the Sheraton Hotel on Old Ridgebury Road.

"It could be something where (the thieves) are more organized than usual, or it could simply be crimes of opportunity," said Danbury police spokesman Capt. Robert Myles. "But the fact that other valuables are being taken at the same time would seem to indicate opportunity. Most pros would only go after one thing."

Unlike other thefts from vehicles, which often occur under cover of darkness, GPS thieves seem especially brazen. Most units have been taken from vehicles in parking lots in broad daylight.

Tom Burns of Wilton said someone took a $800 Garmin Nuvi GPS system from his new pickup truck outside his office on Mill Plain Road sometime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. last Wednesday.

"I came out for lunch and my passenger window was in the front seat. Even the suction cup that holds it on the windshield and the cord to the cigarette lighter were gone," Burns said.

Burns said there were sneaker prints on the vehicle next to his, where the thief apparently stood to reach inside and grab the navigation system.

"It's hard to believe that in a busy area nobody saw the guy's legs hanging out the front window," he said. "But these people have no fear. They took it in the middle of the day."

The satellite-linked devices, which can literally guide a driver from a starting point to within feet of their destinations, have become an increasingly popular accessory in the past several years.

"They've been around for six or seven years, but it's really in the last three or four that they've got very strong in sales," said Ken Yessin, owner of Sounds Incredible Mobile on Federal Road in Danbury.

"When they first came out, they were prohibitive, about $3,000 to $4,000 apiece. But today, you can get a really nice portable unit for $500-$1,000 that will do the same thing as a factory-installed system," he said.

All the Danbury thefts involved aftermarket global positioning systems, but police in other parts of the state recently broke up a ring in which factory-installed GPSs were taken from new cars on dealership lots.

"It was a very organized group that worked all over Fairfield and New Haven counties," said Shelton police Detective Robert Kozlowsky.

Shelton car dealers were burglarized at least five times and more than $134,000 worth of GPS systems were taken, he said.

The suspected thieves, a 34-year-old Waterbury man and his 29-year-old brother, who lived in Queens, N.Y., committed more than two dozen other burglaries at dealerships in Connecticut and New York state and sold the systems to a man who operated an automotive electronics business in Brooklyn.

The brothers allegedly also took diagnostic computer equipment needed to reprogram the devices, which otherwise would only operate in the vehicle in which they were installed, Kozlowsky said.

Myles said Danbury police are actively investigating the local thefts, but for now, the best thing the public can do to avoid becoming a victim is to keep their unit, and other valuables, out of sight when it's not being used, and to keep a record of the serial number, so police will know who it belongs to if it is recovered.

But Burns harbors no hopes of ever getting his system back.

"I could probably go find it on eBay for $500. That's not too bad, a quick $500 for about 30 seconds work," he said.

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By John Pirro

THE NEWS-TIMES

Contact John Pirro at jpirro@newstimes.com or at (203) 731-3342.

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