I wanted to close the loop on a situation I had posted about earlier.
My Sony A1 (Serial: S01-3372293-F), which was stolen during a Facebook Marketplace meetup, has been successfully recovered.
The camera was located at a pawn shop in Boston, and thanks to coordinated efforts between Wayland PD, Boston PD, and Framingham State University Police, it has now been returned to me.
I’m sharing this update so that anyone who may have noted the serial number earlier can be assured:
👉 This camera is no longer stolen and is fully accounted for.
I truly appreciate the support and vigilance of the photography community here, as well as the work done by law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions.
If anyone has any questions or had flagged this serial previously, feel free to reach out.
Amazing, I had zero hope for you given my anecdotal experience with law enforcement. I'm so glad it worked out, huge congrats! It's not just the recovery of property but the undoing of a violation.
The_Juggernaut wrote:
Amazing, I had zero hope for you given my anecdotal experience with law enforcement. I'm so glad it worked out, huge congrats! It's not just the recovery of property but the undoing of a violation.
I agree! Justice is being served! The guy robbed 3 more people.. at least that I am aware of.. who knows how many more.. he is going to be charged with multiple accounts as I hear.
I was really thinking about getting your Sony A1 awhile back, but went a different route, im so happy to hear that you got it back!! This Sony A1 is legend!! Another story to add to it!
I wanted to close the loop on a situation I had posted about earlier.
My Sony A1 (Serial: S01-3372293-F), which was stolen during a Facebook Marketplace meetup, has been successfully recovered.
The camera was located at a pawn shop in Boston, and thanks to coordinated efforts between Wayland PD, Boston PD, and Framingham State University Police, it has now been returned to me.
I’m sharing this update so that anyone who may have noted the serial number earlier can be assured:
👉 This camera is no longer stolen and is fully accounted for.
I truly appreciate the support and vigilance of the photography community here, as well as the work done by law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions.
If anyone has any questions or had flagged this serial previously, feel free to reach out.
jberry wrote:
I was really thinking about getting your Sony A1 awhile back, but went a different route, im so happy to hear that you got it back!! This Sony A1 is legend!! Another story to add to it!
hehe! thanks! Sony A1 is still the king along with A1 II.
Danrdz10103 wrote:
Glad you got it back. I guess you can now stop with the hassle of getting paid through insurance.
just curious, what lessons you derived from the experience that could help this great community? what to do and what not to do?
I would say if your camera is ever stolen or lost, a few things shall help
- immediately file a police report
- share the serial number and info with major stores, local stores, pawn shops. police does this with pawn shops as they have some system that pawn shops can alert them if camera with that serial shows up but good to do this proactively anyway
- if you can make social media post and broadcast it do it.. that can help get the word out making it harder for thief to sell it or anyone wanting to help to spot it if its being sold
- also make an ad via FB, craigslist wherever broadcasting about your item and serial number etc.
- for me another important factor that helped was that another photographer noticed my posts and contacted.. he was robbed by same person same camera literally in neighboring town. he had given up but I encouraged him to file a case etc and follow up. point being that that added another case to the pool. Then there were two more who got robbed in boston.. so overall this being broader coverage probably helped me too as more police departments started to pay attention.
- with police a lot of people told me.. I didn't do this deliberately in my case but I think one should - is to follow up consistently.
- one more thing I will add is depending on who the officer you are dealing with just note that police the way they operate is interesting - they may not be the warmest person you deal with. Their language might be coarse or at times they may appear rude etc.. but ignore that.. just deal with facts and try and get their help. dont' take their behavior negatively.. who knows what kind of stuff they themselves deal with day to day and they may not have the concept of empathy etc toward other people in terms of communication. So that is something to keep in mind. I myself felt like that initially with some interactions but my wife who work in healthcare reminded me that that is how police may communicate so not to take personally. she said that as she deals with police at times in hospital when there are cases that need social worker - police etc. So she was aware of this aspect of dealing with police.
- for any FB transaction etc, do keep a log of things like messages, text messages etc. snapshot of profile you interacted with. don't assume they removed the profile. sometimes they will block you and not remove their profile, so you can see their profile with a different FB account.
- if you can get hold of footage from area where you dealt - that is useful.. someone reached out to me with details of property owner who could provide camera footage where this guy met me.. I provided all those details to the police.. I am sure police has camera footage they can use as evidence.
- all in all deal with people ONLY at police station where they have spot for internet transactions. even public places are not safe I would say
cybersimba wrote:
I would say if your camera is ever stolen or lost, a few things shall help
- immediately file a police report
- share the serial number and info with major stores, local stores, pawn shops. police does this with pawn shops as they have some system that pawn shops can alert them if camera with that serial shows up but good to do this proactively anyway
- if you can make social media post and broadcast it do it.. that can help get the word out making it harder for thief to sell it or anyone wanting to help to spot it if its being sold
- also make an ad via FB, craigslist wherever broadcasting about your item and serial number etc.
- for me another important factor that helped was that another photographer noticed my posts and contacted.. he was robbed by same person same camera literally in neighboring town. he had given up but I encouraged him to file a case etc and follow up. point being that that added another case to the pool. Then there were two more who got robbed in boston.. so overall this being broader coverage probably helped me too as more police departments started to pay attention.
- with police a lot of people told me.. I didn't do this deliberately in my case but I think one should - is to follow up consistently.
- one more thing I will add is depending on who the officer you are dealing with just note that police the way they operate is interesting - they may not be the warmest person you deal with. Their language might be coarse or at times they may appear rude etc.. but ignore that.. just deal with facts and try and get their help. dont' take their behavior negatively.. who knows what kind of stuff they themselves deal with day to day and they may not have the concept of empathy etc toward other people in terms of communication. So that is something to keep in mind. I myself felt like that initially with some interactions but my wife who work in healthcare reminded me that that is how police may communicate so not to take personally. she said that as she deals with police at times in hospital when there are cases that need social worker - police etc. So she was aware of this aspect of dealing with police.
- for any FB transaction etc, do keep a log of things like messages, text messages etc. snapshot of profile you interacted with. don't assume they removed the profile. sometimes they will block you and not remove their profile, so you can see their profile with a different FB account.
- if you can get hold of footage from area where you dealt - that is useful.. someone reached out to me with details of property owner who could provide camera footage where this guy met me.. I provided all those details to the police.. I am sure police has camera footage they can use as evidence.
- all in all deal with people ONLY at police station where they have spot for internet transactions. even public places are not safe I would say
Thanks, what is your view based on this experience, about the role of insurance? At face value, it seems to me that getting a police report and using it to get your money from insurance like PPA, is way less stressful and time consuming. in all, how many hours you spent on this (roughly)?
My trick whenever doing in person demos is to take a picture or video of the potential buyer. Then take the memory card out when you are doing the transaction itself and having the buyer pull up PayPal or Venmo or cash. This means you have a high res image/video of the person, far better than any security camera.
In my case with the GFX 100S (which happened in a McDonalds + gas station in Richardson/Garland, TX), it helped them identify the guy immediately (he's in prison for 12 years now, he was a serial robber, and did the "just walking away trick") though it took 2 months to actually arrest him and another 3 months after that for me to get the camera back (damaged). https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1877707/
Congratulations on getting the camera back! You ought to put this up on the main Sony forum--it's interesting and a good cautionary tale.
Did they arrest the psychopath who stole it? And was the pawn shop implicated? How did actually find it and how did you get so many police departments involved? And why Framingham school police? Was the perp a student?
i'd be interested to hear more of the true-crime details.
It's nice when a crime has a good ending, with retribution!
