After around $300,000 in laptops, smartphones, and other goods went missing from some postal trucks in Sweden over the summer, officials put cameras into trucks that they thought might be particularly inviting targets. They were right.
What the cameras capture is extraordinary: Two thieves, later arrested, breaking open the rear of a truck and jumping in from the roof of a car, all at around 50 mph.
PostNord, the mail company co-owned by Sweden and Denmark, described the elaborate operation to catch the thieves on a post on their website:
The criminal gang was captured one night in mid-September. A pair of hidden surveillance cameras had been installed in the trailer of a PostNord truck that was considered to be at risk. The most valuable goods had been moved elsewhere. The PostNord security team was nearby, watching the surveillance film in real-time on a tablet while in telephone contact with the driver. Unmarked police cars were also nearby.
“Suddenly I saw on the film how the back doors of the truck were opened and two men jumped in, from the hood of a car traveling right behind the truck at high speed and with no lights on. They looked through the cargo without finding what they were looking for, and were then about to leave the vehicle. That was when I told the driver to brake,” says Alexis Larsson.
The braking meant that the men could not leave the truck because their own car had to brake and drop back. When the truck finally stopped and the men opened the back doors, they were met by a large police unit.
According to the Associated Press, four Romanian men were sentenced to up to 21 months in jail on Thursday for their roles in the crimes.