news
The car came back!
Boomerang tracking system helps throw thieves for a loop
The Montreal Gazette
François Shalom
3/6/1999
Peter Rodolakis took no chances – he’d already had his 5 litre Mustang stolen, after all, and it was never found.

So to protect his dream 1991 “British racing green” Mazda Miata he bought last may, he equipped it with a kill switch, the Club and the Boomerang, a tracking device.

Three weeks later, on a blind date, he went to Loews cinema downtown to catch the Truman Show and parked nearby.

It was the parking-lot attendant who turned out to be blind. By the time Rodolikas returned to the lot after 11 p.m. his trophy car had been stolen, right under the watchman’s nose.
The thieves had bypassed the Club by sawing through the steering wheel and the kill switch by basically destroying the steering column.
But the Boomerang lived up to its name, in this instance, when the flashy sports model was spotted less than two hours after it was reported stolen.

That turned Rodolikas, a 24-year-old pharmaceutical-firm data-monitor, into a believer in the Boomerang, the brainchild of three guys who formed a company with the portentous name of Rankin Research Corporation.

Its one product, the Boomerang, has recovered more than 225 cars since its launch four years ago.

On the strength of that record, André Boulay, Rankin Research’s vice-president (technology), and Freddy Marcantonio, its marketing and operations director and chief spokesman, are attempting to build recognition of Boomerang’s brand name.

Rankin Research, which claims sales of about $4 million and has about 25 employees, has sold 5,000 of the units in Quebec and about 3,00 in Ontario.

In one case, a recovery by Boomerang-complete with local-news camera in tow-led directly to a chop shop littered with stolen luxury cars in various stages of dismantlement.

In another, a 4x4 heisted from a Montreal street, was found – in Lithuania. It was the prize possession, for a short while, of a town’s police chief.

Then, there was a guy who called the police and the insurance company to report that his car had been swiped from a ‘Toys ’ R’ Us’ parking lot, The homing system, however, was able to determine that the car had, in fact, been in Texas for more than a week. It seems the owner had driven down to the Lone Star State, sold the car, traveled back to Montreal, and reported it missing.

Nor is the Boomerang’s use confined to cars: Nortel has placed it in cargo loads.

In one case, a stolen truck’s shipment of Nortel telephones was traced to an unauthorized Nortel dealer seeking a serious boost in profit margin.

There were 22,000 car thefts on the island of Montreal, last year, In greater Montreal, including Laval and the South Shore, 35, 000 vehicles were stolen. That’s a car every 15 minutes – four every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Which means the 225 recoveries vs. 140,000 cars stolen over Boomerang’s 4-year life span is an infinitesimal rate, barley scratching the surfaces of the problem.

But it does have the support of the policeman who counts in Montreal, Cdr. Doug Hurley, who is in charge of the Montreal Urban Community Police anti-theft property-crime division.

Montreal remains the car-theft capital of Canada, although Toronto is fast gaining on our long-held preserve.

Hurley endorses the Boomerang as a small, but welcome measure in the fight against the booming car-theft business. “ It’s a very efficient system once the car is stolen,” he said.

Its makers, however, see it in a more grandiose light, as a long-overdue application of “revolutionary” technology to solve a growing plague.

The cell-phone technology, in fact, is hardly revolutionary, but its application vehicle tracking may be. Most of the systems to date, which have flopped, have used GPS (Global Positioning System).

But the knocks against GPS are many: the systems are expensive, requiring transmission from a satellite – often two. And they can’t penetrate brick or metal that’s too thick or too far underground. Given that many Quebec cars are stolen on order and shipped in metal containers to the Middle East, Asia, Africa and countries of the former Soviet Union, or dismantled in underground garages, the application of GPS has limited use against car theft.

But aren’t these the same knocks against cell phones? That is, they can’t be used in underground parking lots, in tunnels, even on the open road when the towers are too far apart, or in bad weather.
Boomerang Tracking Inc. markets and distributes the Boomerang® tracking devices, proprietary products using technology patented by the Company. The Boomerang, Boomerang2™ and GSM-based units are the central devices in a system that uses the wireless networks of major regional telecommunications companies for tracking stolen assets. The Boomerang Tracking System is capable of locating stolen automobiles, heavy equipment and valuable assets. As a result of its success, the Company has received the endorsement of members of the insurance industry. The Boomerang devices are available and installed through a network of authorized dealers in Quebec and Ontario. The Company's head office, research and development centre and manufacturing facilities are located in Montreal, Quebec, with regional facilities located in Mississauga, Ontario and Orange County, California. Boomerang is a registered trademark and Boomerang2 is a trademark of Boomerang Tracking Inc. The shares of Boomerang Tracking Inc. trade on The Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol BMG.