Beef thief caught red-handed using a GPS tracking device in the palettes.

Food distribution companies are beginning to utilize GPS technology, and it is helping them recover lost product. Beef is one of the most expensive foods to purchase, therefore making it a target for thieves. Recently in Orange County, Florida, a group of thieves chose the wrong truck to rob.

Instead of stealing the beef from the truck, the men stole the entire refrigerated truck and ran off with it. With them, they took several thousands of dollars worth of beef. The truck was loaded with the beef in order to be delivered the next day, so the thieves knew it would be a perfect opportunity to take off with it. They stole the truck and left the meat in an unrefrigerated warehouse with the intention to sell it later at the black market.

Stealing beef happens more often than you might think, according to Brad Bateman of North South Foods. Each truck holds thousands of dollars of meat. As a meat broker with North South Foods, he told reporters stealing beef is a large business for these types of thieves, due to the large profit they can get. Another truck was stolen in Osceola County, that had around $250,000 worth of beef inside. Unfortunately, the truck was found empty in Seminole County several days later. Had they been using GPS trackers, it might have avoided the significant loss.

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If it looks like Oxycontin and is labeled as Oxycontin, it must be Oxycontin, right? Wrong.

The New York City Police Department is cracking down on Oxycontin prescription medication theft by “baiting” pill bottles with GPS trackers.

There has been an increase in robberies of the prescription medication Oxycontin throughout New York City. Many of these robberies have become violent and the crime is growing at an alarming rate.

This includes the armed robbery of painkillers from a pharmacy in Medford in 2011 that resulted in four people being shot and killed during the robbery. David Laffer walked out of the pharmacy with thousands of painkiller and having killed four people. This is just one of many violent cases of prescription pill theft throughout NYC.

GPS Tracking Bait Bottles

In an effort to stop these types of crimes, bait bottles will be filled with placebo pills that look like Oxycontin and labeled as Oxycontin. The bottles will also have GPS trackers inside them that let the NYPD in New York City track down the thieves. The police department hopes to not only catch the thieves, but be led straight to the black market dealer selling the Oxycontin.

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Business expenses, across the board rose in 2012 over expenses in the 2011 calendar year. One of the notable increases for businesses that operate commercial fleets is the rise in maintenance costs of seven percent in 2012 over maintenance expenses in 2011.This trend is forecasted to continue, which means businesses operating fleet vehicles must look for ways to reduce these rising maintenance expenses.

“The forecast is for overall passenger car maintenance expenses to rise slightly in 2013,” reports the March 2013 edition of Automotive Fleet magazine. This year’s report marks the 18th annual maintenance study for commercial fleet passenger vehicles conducted by GE Capital Fleet Services.

One significant detail the report notes is that repair costs were notably higher for fleet vehicles that had been in service for more than 37 months than those that has been in service for lower amounts of time.

Additionally, the report suggests that it’s more cost effective to cycle older vehicles in order to reduce costly repairs and the potential for driver downtime while repairs are taking place. Once vehicles pass the 60,000 mark on the odometer, the average costs for repairs increases dramatically.

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Local “Yard Sheriff” has built a reputation of “lawn ‘n order” for being tough on tall grass and weeds. Today, there’s a new feather under his big white cowboy hat:  being tough on crime.

This new feather is the GPS tracking devices  installed on his company trucks.

A Bixby, Oklahoma  lawn care provider was able to use his GPS tracking system to help locate thousands of dollars worth of stolen business equipment.

Darren DeShazer, Yard Sheriff General Manager, discovered the back garage door open when he arrived at work one morning. He then walked out of the warehouse the business has occupied for about three months to discover that the Ford F-250 and trailer he used for his business were gone.

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GPS tracking technology brings new worlds of discovery opportunity for children today. It allows children, who are curious by nature, the opportunity to get a little fresh air and exercise without even realizing they’re exploring nature—all the while learning in the process.

Thanks to the assistance of technology, it isn’t even necessary for them to wait on parents to have the free time to go with them. More communities are offering GPS tracking for specific trails so that kids are free to explore the world of nature, which has been a significant rite of childhood for centuries.

One lucky nature center now has the opportunity to help young adults connect and engage with nature, while developing their observation, trekking, and problem solving skills.

A new grant, the Barbara Beetow State Grant, provided by the Alpha Delta Kappa Society of Caledonia, Wisconsin, is going to the River Bend Nature Center. The nature center has decided to use the grant money in a manner that will promote the engagement of children and nature. Read the rest of this entry »