ABC 20/20 goes undercover this week with journalist Gio Benitez to find some stolen items through the use of modern technology.
ABC 20/20 is a weekly hour-long magazine that focuses on human interest topics . Since 1978, 20/20 has brought some of the most interesting and compelling topics to the public. Tonight’s episode, entitled Hot Pursuit , will follow Gio Benitez as they try to track down a stolen bike. They’ll be using hidden cameras and GPS devices to track it.
In the trailer preview, we see Benitez find a bike that has been stolen from a private garage. A GPS device helps track the stolen bike to a storage facility. To the investigators’ surprise, the bike is eventually traced to a man named Ricardo at a flea market.
Viewers will get to see a brutal Benitez embarrass the disgraced thief who denies knowing where the bike came from originally, stating that he had no idea the bike was stolen.
Many of the items stolen from homes around the country are showing up at county flea markets and on popular buying sites, such as Craigslist. Ebay is another online company that tries to crack down on the sale of “hot” and counterfeit merchandise. As for using modern technology to track these items down, Gio Benitez and his crew are not the only ones who are using this type of technology to find stolen items. Policeman and other law enforcement agencies are using technology to make arrests.
In Arizona, one man who had several luxury electronic items in his home had placed small GPS devices inside each one. This proved to be helpful when a thief kicked down his door one day and stole money, along with some expensive jewelry. The homeowner was literally able to watch his stolen items move through the city by car and into the home of the thief. The homeowner contacted police and directed them to the exact location where his stolen items were hidden in the robber’s home.
In other areas across the U.S. and the U.K., individuals are using micro GPS devices to track stolen bikes, iPads, and iPhones. But one must be careful about tracking these items alone because, in some situations, this could prove deadly. One example is the case of Jeremy Cooks, an 18-year-old Canadian teen who tracked his stolen iPhone through an app. Cooks traced the iPhone to its exact location and attempted to recover it but was shot and killed by the thieves. People are not only using GPS devices to find stolen merchandise but also cheating spouses. Now, law enforcement officials are urging the public to be smart. Never attempt to track a stolen item or a cheating spouse on your own. Contact police.
Watch ABC 20/20 tonight at 10/9 Central to see how the experts catch these dishonorable thieves.
[Photo Credit: Facebook]
