You may have heard of “bait cars,” which for decades have been employed by law enforcement to catch car thieves. Now, the same idea is being applied to porch pirates.
Richland Police launch new porch pirate program.
RPD said Wednesday on their Facebook page, “package theft, but make it festive.,”
Operation Porch Pirate is being launched across the city. A variety of dummy packages are being placed on porches, driveways and other locations often frequented by porch pirates.
However, these have GPS trackers cleverly hidden in them (99 percent of us won’t find them). These dummy packages even include bikes, trikes, and other large shipped items.
RPD says they are equipped with the necessary tech to catch whomever removes the package, or if it ‘strays’ from its location.
Of course, no word how many are being deployed or where…porch pirates will just have to find out the hard way.
A few years ago, a new trend began with frustrated homeowners who took the porch pirate theft issue into their own hands. They began leaving dummy packages on their own porches or sidewalks, but the boxes contained everything from dog droppings to diapers, to old moldy food and discarded fridge items.
Some homeowners even booby-trapped the boxes by placing springs underneath the ‘items’ so when opened, their contents would spew all over the porch pirates.