Lead thief used Google Maps to find victims

Posted by Al Warmington on Mon 16 Mar 2009

Look for stuff to nick? Just Google it.

Shady roofer, Tom Berge, was able to scout for and half inch valuable lead roofing using Google Maps, the Metropolitan Police has revealed. Over a period of 6 months, the 27 year old used the online satellite mapping service to look for lead roofs near his London home, identifiable by their darker colour.

When Berge was apprehended in a stolen vehicle, it was found that he and his accomplices had already made off with an estimated £100,000 worth of the valuable building material. At the time of the thefts, lead was worth around £700 per ton, although now its value has dropped to £350 per ton. Nice to see that even criminals are getting credit crunched.

"The properties hit included Sutton High School for Girls and the Honeywood museum, Carshalton, where £10,000-worth of lead was removed from the roof of each building," said a spokesman for the Met.

Berge used ladders and abseiling ropes to strip the lead and load it into his getaway vehicle.

This marks just another in a series of controversies surrounding Google’s mapping service. Right now, Government ministers are raising privacy concerns over the latest service upgrade and personal tracking service, Google Latitude. Although in this instance, perhaps Latitude would have proved more a hindrance to Berge’s nefarious night time antics than a help.

Link: Google Maps (via The Independent)