Cleaning crew at conference caught on video swiping a laptop

[Editor’s Note: This account of a theft earlier this month at the ASIS security conference in Dallas, TX, was provided by Milestone Systems.]

Around 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, October 12, a few of the cleaning crew did more than just vacuum and dust on the evening tour of duty -- they also allegedly swiped computer equipment from exhibitors' booth displays.

However, failing to notice that the convention had gathered the best of the security industry’s video surveillance equipment, the crew didn’t realize this would be the last time they performed that sanitation job.

At the ASIS 2010 security trade show, several exhibitors discovered missing electronics on the second morning of the event. Milestone Systems fortunately had a booth adjacent to one of the victim’s booth, with surveillance cameras set up to demonstrate Milestone’s XProtect IP video management software, which recorded the dirty deeds.

See the video of the alleged thief in action at: http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/21718?c=video_surveillance_cctv

"I arrived at our booth early Wednesday morning to get our security systems up and running when I realized the laptop that ran our radar surveillance system was gone; it stored proprietary software from Moog QuickSet,” said Trish Logue, a marketing manager at Moog QuickSet. “I immediately reported it to the Arata event managers, who contacted the security personnel, as well as the Dallas police.

“They suggested I ask booths around mine if they were missing anything, so I approached Kevin Gramer from Rimage, who was exhibiting in the Milestone booth,” Logue continued. “He immediately fired up the Milestone video from an Axis camera that was pointing at the Moog QuickSet booth all night. Needless to say, I was more than impressed when he pulled up the video of the two individuals clearly stealing the laptop.

“Kevin was extremely accommodating, showing me the features of the software, zooming in on the individuals' faces, slowing down the video, rewinding, etc. He burned five CDs for me and I immediately gave Arata services a copy of the video clearly showing the perpetrators in action. The video surveillance helped the Dallas police positively identify them; they were apprehended and we got our laptop back," said Logue.