Rural communities in Humberside being targeted in tractor crime wave that is going global

They are necessary for farmers and allow them to navigate to specific locations in their fields and land, collect soil samples or monitor crop conditions and come with a signal receiver which can cost around £4,000 and a screen for inside the cab, which can cost a further £8,000.

In the Humberside Police Force area alone this year there have been 13 reported thefts and in its annual crime report for 2022, rural insurer, NFU Mutual said that the total cost of agricultural vehicle theft claims remained at the same level last year at £9.1m.

It noted that organised criminal gangs have been targeting farmyards for high-value tractors, GPS systems and trailers but added that, in relation to GPS theft, the cost was £1.5m last year.

Trailer theft is also now becoming a major problem, with claims totalling £1.75m received by NFU Mutual in 2021 – up almost five per cent on 2020.

However, PC Kevin Jones from Humberside’s Rural Task Force said this only represented the incidents that had been reported so the true figure is likely to be higher and that the implications went even further because of the difficulties in replacing them.

He said: “That is just the reported ones and the ones that go through the insurer. It is a massive financial impact but they can’t replace the devices as fast as they are being stolen because the parts required to replace them are in short supply.

"These are the hidden implications and factors that people don’t realise are affecting farmers.”

He said it wasn’t unique to one area of Humberside but that reports were coming from across the region from the North Yorkshire border and down to Holderness and Spurn Point.

A similar pattern is emerging across other police forces and the trend is being linked to organised crime gangs working to supply a demand on a global level.

Over recent weeks, Humberside Police has been visiting farms marking tractor GPS systems and registering the devices on the free property register @ImmobiliseCrime which can help stolen property to be identified and returned.

PC Jones added: “When you have something of high value, it will always be of interest to opportunist thieves and when anything goes up in value it gets on the radar of people wishing to maximise from it.

"In relation to GPS systems we are finding, and with other forces, they are being stolen by organised criminal gangs across the country and exported to other parts of Europe and other countries and sold to farming communities abroad. They are sold to communities and cities that can’t afford them, especially Ukraine that is a massive farming community.”