Redmond, Wash. – SIRAS said that
its law-enforcement database, SIRAS P.I., has been instrumental in aiding two recent
police investigations.
One of the instances was in Northern
California and the other in Florida, leading to the arrest of suspects in both
cases. In both cases patrol officers discovered stolen property by running a
product serial number inquiry against the SIRAS P.I. database at the time of
the incident.
Access to SIRAS P.I. is provided free of charge to
authorized law-enforcement personnel.
“The increasing number of cases we are hearing about
where SIRAS played a role in apprehending suspects is very gratifying,” said
Peter Junger, president of SIRAS. “And not only is it helping police build
their cases, it’s also enabling the stolen products to be returned the
retailers or rightful owners from which they were stolen.”
In Mountain View, Calif., patrol
officers stopped a car for a suspected narcotics violation, only to find
electronics in the car. Upon questioning, the suspects produced a receipt from
a leading retailer with a serial number printed on it. Product serial numbers
print on transaction receipts as part of the patented SIRAS Electronic
Registration Program incorporated into retailer point-of-sale systems. Noticing
that the serial number on the receipt did not match the number on the
television itself, the officer ran the television serial number through SIRAS
P.I., only to find no verifiable sale record for that item, indicating that it
may have been stolen.
“SIRAS P.I. played a vital role
in our ability to make a case against the suspects on our case,” said Detective
Michael Fisher of the Mountain View Police Department. “Because our patrol
officer was able to run a SIRAS search on the spot, we were able to immediately
determine that the suspect’s story was a lie.
No other tool we use gives us this kind of information.”
In Broward County, Fla., police
observed suspicious activity taking place in a parking lot. Upon investigating,
they were able to determine, using SIRAS P.I., that eight portable media
players in the suspect’s car had been stolen from another leading retailer that
also incorporates SIRAS’s Electronic Product Registration technology into their
point-of-sale operations.
Suspects in both cases are
awaiting trial and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,
SIRAS said in a statement.
SIRAS
is a pioneer in point-of-sale electronic product registration and return
validation technology, which allows retailers and manufacturers to track
product, reduce returns and fraud, protect inventory, recover stolen product,
validate warrantees, and improve both forward and reverse logistics. SIRAS also
provides law enforcement and retail loss-prevention professionals with access
to its product data network, SIRAS P.I., for use as a crime-fighting tool to
help them track product and establish ownership. SIRAS provides this access at no charge. For
more information about SIRAS P.I. or to register as a user, email
.
