Google Earth aids Londoner to steal metal worth £100,000

16 March 2009

Google Earth has once again come for criticism, when a thief in London used detailed satellite images of Google Earth to rob metal worth £100,000 from the roofs of historic buildings near his home in London.

Tom Berge, a Londoner used Google Earth website to identify and loot, museums, churches, schools and other buildings that had metal on their rooftops, which was easily identifiable on Google Earth by their darker colour.

Sitting at home on his computer and with a few clicks on the mouse, Berge would target his potential next robbery after honing down the site from satellite images of Google Earth.

Planning the robberies in meticulous manner, Berge with the help of accomplices, used stolen cars and ladders to rob metals on rooftops of buildings and with the help of ropes, scaled down the walls and made their getaway and sold the metal to scrap merchants.

During summer, when Berge carried out most of the robberies, scrap lead was selling for about £700 a tonne, but the recession has brought the price down to £350 a tonne.

During the course of one such robbery, Berge was arrested by the police last month and produced before the Sutton magistrates court, where he was sentenced by the judge to eight-month suspended jail term, asked to do 100 hours of community service and put on curfew from 7:00 am and 7:00 pm.