Cambridgeshire team recovers almost £700,000 of stolen property

Stolen vehicles and machinery worth more than £699,000 have been recovered by Cambridgeshire’s Rural Crime Action Team in six months, offering a route back to essential equipment for affected owners.

The force says officers recovered 48 assets between April and September, including cars, pick-ups, plant machinery and caravans. Five items of plant machinery alone were valued at £206,000.

The specialist team works throughout the year on rural theft and other offences. During the same period, it made 26 arrests and carried out 12 vehicle pursuits.

Owners can also help equipment become identifiable. In separate farm-security guidance, NFU Mutual recommends marking equipment with unique serial numbers and taking photographs, so police can establish where recovered goods came from.

The figures do not say how much property has been returned to owners or how many arrests resulted in convictions. Nor do they establish whether local theft has fallen.

What they do show is practical progress: dozens of valuable assets have been found by officers focused on protecting rural communities.

Sources

• Cambridgeshire Constabulary — six-month recovery figures
• NFU Mutual — identifying equipment to support recovery