Contractors Lose $1 Billion a Year in Equipment Thefts

As the recent theft of a 3,000-pound roller from a Pennsylvania high school in Beaver County demonstrates, anything and everything can be stolen from a construction site.

The huge, slow-moving piece of machinery vanished one weekend this summer from Beaver County High School. An official from the rental company that owned the roller said bulldozers, tractors and loaders have also been known to disappear.

“It happens daily. Equip-ment as small as a hammer or a drill to machines as large as a roller-any of those things are fair game,” said Tim Ellison, the vice president of sales at the Knickerbocker Russell Co. in Pittsburgh.

Construction thefts cost companies around the nation between $300 million and $1 billion a year, according to the National Equipment Register, which tracks heavy equipment theft. In 2004, the National Equipment Register ranked Pennsylvania fifth in the country for construction theft, behind Texas, North Carolina, California and Florida.

Officials said few of the thefts are committed by rival construction companies. Instead, they said, organized theft rings are often to blame.

“Oftentimes it’s pre-sold,” said Ryan Shepherd, an analyst for the National Equipment Register. “They steal it, deliver it and sell it before anyone knows it’s even gone.”

Universal keys have made thefts easier to orchestrate. In an attempt to simplify operations, companies have manufactured keys that can turn on many pieces of equipment. The keys can be purchased on the Internet auction site eBay. Some thieves know this and use the keys to drive away with equipment, especially during weekends or holidays, when construction sites are empty.

“It’s like leaving a brand-new Porsche out with the keys in the ignition,” Shepherd said. “I don’t think any rational person would do that.”

Thieves are also helped by the equipment’s lack of formal titles or registrations. The machinery has Vehicle Identification Numbers, but those numbers can be changed or damaged, those in law enforcement said.

Stolen machinery is also rarely recovered, they said.

“There is no good way to track these things. It’s not easy to find out where a machine started life, let alone where it’s been or where it’s going,” said Frank Zangar, a law enforcement consultant for the LoJack Corp., which makes tracking devices for construction equipment.

As little as 10 percent of the equipment is recovered, according to industry statistics.