Welcome to the first UK wide Broadcast Hire Industry fraud and theft information site.

This site has been set up in order to enable the centralised sharing of information on fraudulent hires and theft in the Broadcast Hire Industry. Since the beginning of 2011 there has been an epidemic of theft throughout the industry, and it seems that the ability of the Police to catch the perpetrators and recover stolen equipment is limited.

Clearly, as an industry, we need to help ourselves, and one of the most effective ways of doing this is to share information. If you have been a victim of fraud, fill in our web form, and the details will be posted on this site. Also let us know if you have had equipment stolen in any other way, eg by robbery, etc.  We particularly value pictures of fraudsters and copies of identity documents used in fraudulent hires, and all images received will be posted in the news section and the rogues’ gallery.

We will never be able to stop fraud, but if we co-operate, and keep each other informed, we can at least make life more difficult for the crooks, conmen and rogues who infest our industry.

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Discussion point: Preventing ‘theft by theft’.

5 Oct 2011: Fraud where the hirer claims that equipment lent to him has been stolen: This is a common tactic used to carry out insurance fraud, or as a delaying tactic to allow the kit to be taken abroad. 

One way of combating this would be to insist that hirers report all theft incidents to the Police within 4 hours of reporting them to the hire company, and provide a verifiable crime number and a copy of the report. Failure to do so will result in the non return of items being reported as theft by the hirer, and full details being posted on this website.

Hirers could be notified that falsely reporting a theft to the Police is a serious criminal offence, that of perverting the course of justice, and will add many years to the original sentence if they are caught and prosecuted.

If the procedures above became standard throughout the industry, the practise of ‘theft by theft’ could be significantly reduced.

Would this work in practice? Is it a good idea? Email admin@xhire.org.uk with your comments.

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‘Accident prone’ hirer experiences ‘miraculous’ kit recovery

28 Sept 2011: Here’s a heart warming story of a hirer who rented various expensive items from one of our Xhire list members, only to find, a short while later, that thieves has smashed open the boot of his car and removed the items, but who then, by a process which can only be described as miraculous, managed to find the items, and the damage to his car suddenly disappeared, without the intervention of a panel beater!

Darius Vencevicius, 31, a native of Lithuania, (Date of Birth: 25/12/1979) called in to say that a Canon XF305 had been stolen, but a quick thinking member of staff at an East Sussex based rental company suggested that he pray for the safe return of the equipment, and also consider the possibility that, if he knowingly made a false report to the Police, whcih would be a necessity for any insurance claim, he would be committing the offence of Perverting the Course of Justice, and could find himself banged up for up to five years. 

After thinking about the issues for a short while, and, no doubt, considerable amounts of prayer, he contacted the company to say that the goods had suddenly re-appeared, and that his car was in fact undamaged. The goods were returned a short time later, although all the identifying labels had been removed.

Although we are in no way questioning the honesty of Mr Venckevicius, he does appear to be subject to more than his fair share of bad luck, and the possibility of another miraculous reappearance of stolen kit is probably slight, a factor which hire companies may wish to take in to consideration when renting out equipment to him.

Mr Venckevicius’s ID docs are below. Click on the thumbnails for full sized images.

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Equipment stolen from car boot

10 August 2011: Equipment including a Sony PMW-EX1 XDCam was stolen from a car boot on 9 August 2011. West Yorkshire Crime Ref: 365931 . The list of stolen kit is below.

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Narendra Thakkar, Global Promedia: 8 Hire Companies Affected

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