Cemex recovers an expensive JCB digger: 500 miles, two weeks and three countries after it was stolen

A stolen JCB digger has been returned to its owner, Cemex UK, after a 500-mile chase around the UK and Europe that spanned two weeks, it was revealed today.  

The digger was stolen from Cemex’s Peterlee site near Durham and was tracked down by means of a monitoring device by security firm Securi-Guard, which was concealed in the chassis of the machine. 

After a hunt by five UK police forces, Dutch and German police and even Interpol, the digger was recovered in a rental yard in Holland. Dutch police arrested two men at the scene believed to be members of an international ring involved in stealing plant machinery from the UK and transporting it to Europe for sale on the black market.

The alarm was raised on 16 September when Securi-Guard confirmed the digger had been stolen after receiving an alert from the tracker device. 

The machine was whisked through Cleveland, Middlesborough, Lancashire and Humberside before the trail went cold because it had been shipped in a container over the North Sea and could not be tracked until it was unloaded. 

Once the tracking device was picked up in Holland, the Dutch police were alerted. However, the digger remained just one step ahead as it left for Germany. Although German police located the JCB, they were unable to hold it because they did not have the necessary paperwork and a report of the theft had not yet reached Interpol. The digger left Germany and was tracked once again in Holland where Dutch police were finally able to impound the machine and detain the two men on 30 September.  

Dave Gordon, Cemex's north-east regional director for Readymix said: “In the North-east we always specify tracker devices on our new plant. Recovery of the machine was due to the tireless efforts of everyone involved in this operation including all the police forces. We were very lucky to get a very expensive piece of machinery back.”

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