Thieves Target Landscaping Equipment

The Boston area has been hit hard in the past six months.

Thieves have been targeting landscaping companies in the Boston area, feeding tens of thousands of dollars of often-unrecoverable equipment to a black market hungry for high-end goods, according to police and industry officials.

In the past six months, at least 20 new investigations were opened into landscaping equipment theft in the region, said National Insurance Crime Bureau senior special agent Richard Murphy, who tracks Massachusetts equipment thefts. Among the victims are businesses in Chelmsford, Groton, Harvard, Methuen, and Woburn.

State Police Sergeant Michael Wheaton said the Governor's Auto Theft Strike Force has seen thefts of high-end equipment, particularly the small Bobcat skid steer loader, climb to 30-50 machines per year in Eastern Massachusetts, up from the 10-15 machines taken five years ago.

"It's very lucrative" Wheaton said. "Some of these machines are at $40,000 to $50,000 brand new. Usually the going rate is half-price, stolen."

Another commonly stolen item is the professional Walker brand power mower, which costs as much as $15,000 new, said Paul Spinazola, owner of Pro Equipment Service in Woburn.

Adam Gurzynski, an equipment analyst at the National Equipment Register who tracks equipment theft, said thieves typically hit their targets during the off-season and on weekends, when owners might not be around.

Chelmsford police Deputy Chief Scott R. Ubele said this spring, some area landscapers opened their storage space doors at the start of the season to discover "anything and everything they had" gone.

"Landscapers are getting hammered," said Spinazola.

What's worse is that the pilfered equipment is rarely recovered, pushing up insurance costs for everyone. The gap between theft and discovery keeps stolen equipment recovery rates nationally in the 5-10 percent range, said Gurzynski.

One National Equipment Register study places the average annual loss to business from equipment theft nationwide at $600 million, but without an umbrella system to keep track of such equipment it's difficult to trace the merchandise to its rightful owner or seller, or even to measure theft by region, said Gurzynski.

"With cars it's all very standardized, but with equipment you can sell a $180,000 machine with a bill of sale that is basically a napkin from Wendy's," he said.

Gurzynski said currently each company issues its own number to a piece of equipment according to a proprietary format, typically on a removable plate. There is no equipment equivalent of a motor vehicle identification number, he said, and part of his organization's business is to encourage owners to register inventory serial numbers with its database and to etch the numbers on the equipment in more than one location.

Wheaton said increasingly organized black market dealers have also made recovery more difficult by shipping stolen equipment overseas, typically in cargo containers.

Murphy said equipment thefts in Massachusetts are often committed by drug addicts needing to feed their habit. But some suspects are well connected and organized, police said.

They point to a case involving Robert Dussault, 40, of Lowell, who pleaded not guilty on April 10 in District Court in Salem, N.H., to charges of felony theft, criminal trespassing, and driving with a suspended license in connection with a Jan. 29 equipment trailer theft. Salem police Lieutenant Steve Malisos said Dussault is also a suspect in a theft in York, Maine, and is a person of interest to police in Woburn in connection with an incident at Pro Equipment Service on Feb. 25.

Malisos said Dussault and at least two other individuals are suspected of having stockpiled equipment in New Hampshire for sale on Massachusetts' South Shore.

"The information we received is he was doing it for a very long time," Malisos said of Dussault.

Dussault was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail at his arraignment in Salem; his case is now with the Rockingham County attorney's office, where County Attorney James M. Reams said prosecutors are reviewing charges prior to indictment. Neither Dussault nor an attorney for his defense could be reached for comment.

Several landscaping shop owners and contractors in this area say they are spending time and money trying to secure their inventories.

After thieves struck Spinazola for the second time in February, he said he spent $4,000 to install surveillance cameras in his yards and buildings. "I want to catch them, to find out who it is, more than anything," he said.

Jack Aiello, owner of Aiello Seasonal Center in Methuen, also installed cameras, but said they proved to be of little deterrence.

"I've been hit six times," he said. "We were hit three times over the winter. I put in $5,000 worth of cameras. My building is alarmed, but [one thief] was here for an hour and a half loading it all in a trailer . . . right in front of the camera."

Brazen tactics also surprised employees at PC Myette Power Equipment in Groton, where one employee said thieves cut a hole through the side of the building and made off with a trailer full of gear.

Richie Carbone, of Sunrise Landscaping Co. in Woburn, said he tried high-tech locks. But thieves responded in March with diamond-toothed chop saws.

Now the loss doesn't stop at empty trailers and missing mowers, Carbone said. "We can only go to the insurance company a couple times - before they cancel and don't want anything to do with you any more."

The demand for stolen, cut-rate equipment remains strong, meanwhile, especially among commercial users struggling to keep up their businesses in these tough economic times, police say.

"They might be more inclined to get more hot items," said Malisos. "As the economy gets tough, their judgment gets twisted."

The advice to buyers? Avoid sellers not already known and trusted, police say.