Spy vehicles catch thieves red handedPublished on 10 April 2008  A police force in South East England has chosen VIT's covert equipment for use in a number of vehicles to capture evidential images - in day and night conditions - of "smash and grab" thieves who break into parked vehicles to steal valuables.
In ongoing operations, the unmarked vehicles will be placed in hotspot areas where vehicle break-ins occur regularly. Each one is equipped with up to 8 of VIT's covert ultra-low-light cameras. The disguised covert cameras are strategically placed inside the vehicle in order to capture an offender's face so that they can be clearly identified and brought to justice. Because the image of the theft-taking place is recorded evidentially, it is impossible for the person found with the stolen items to claim successfully that they either bought or were given them. When a thief has stolen one of the vehicle's accessories, tracking devices enable the police to locate the unaware thief quickly, make an arrest and recover the stolen item. The quality of the footage obtained from the vehicles is so clear, even in complete darkness, that the police can easily secure a prosecution against the thief. VIT's state of the art, night vision-enabled surveillance system is capable of recording 25 frames a second per camera, 24 hours a day. VIT specialise in ultra-low-light evidential imaging with cameras operating down to 0.00003 lux (starlight). In-house developed "Autocontrast Adjusting Technology" (AAT) allows the cameras to provide evidential images from inside the vehicles in day and night operation, even in pitch darkness. The information is recorded onto an on-board hot-swappable hard drive. The system can also remotely send images to the police as backup and pre-warn them both of the committing of the offence and for who they should be looking. The system's batteries are capable of providing 5 days of uninterrupted recording. | 
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