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By Greg Bartlett

Sometimes a GPS tracking system is not actually tracking what people believe that it is. People suppose that vehicle tracking systems are accurately tracking everywhere that a person goes and that cell phone tracking points to the direct location of the owner. However, this is not always the case.

Canadian police discovered this fact when they tracked a stolen pickup truck in British Columbia. Instead of finding the truck, the GPS tracking system led them to a secret crystal methamphetamine lab. Apparently, the thieves had discovered the GPS tracking system in the truck and had removed it. However, when they took the device into the house so the truck could not be tracked, they did not turn the device off.

Because the device was still on, when the owner of the stolen vehicle got on his computer and looked up the location of his stolen truck, the real time tracking pointed to the device inside the house. After the house address was given to the police, they drove to the house to locate the pickup truck.

Instead of a truck they saw another vehicle pull into the driveway and two men ran into the house.
Upon entering the home, the police smelled marijuana, which they soon discovered, as well as the meth lab. They also found several other vehicles and a boat o the property that they believed were stolen. After a few more hours of searching, the police were finally able to locate the missing pickup truck that they had thought they were tracking. The vehicle was parked several blocks away.

That must have been quite a day for those police officers in British Columbia. Not only did they find the stolen truck that had been called in that day as well as several other stolen vehicles, but they also busted three men and a woman for drugs.

This just goes to show that a GPS tracking system might not be pointing to what you think that it is. Luckily for the police, in this case, the tracking device was still pointing to something that they wanted to find. Whether you are tracking your employees or your children, realize that the system may not be where you think it is. Real time GPS tracking is accurate, but it only points to the system itself, not necessarily the item or person that you want to track.