Fully-Furnished Fake Houses in UK Run Solely to Trap Burglars

[onehandle]

Since the end of 2007, police in the UK have run a secret network of fully-furnished fake apartments and townhouses, solely for the purpose of capturing local burglary suspects. These are called "capture houses."

Beginning in the city of Leeds, capture houses were "secret homes fitted with covert police cameras, which film raiders and unique chemical sprays which contaminate intruders have led to further arrests in the area," the Yorkshire Evening Post reported in December 2007. These chemical sprays and forensic coatings—applied to door handles, window latches, and other goods throughout the properties, including TVs, laptops, and digital cameras—are the same "SmartWater" used in booby traps to mark intruders.

Recently, as part of my research for a book I'm writing about burglary and architecture, I spoke with Detective Chief Inspector Dave Stopford of the South Yorkshire Police about the "capture house" program.

Based in the city of Rotherham, Stopford explained to me the hit-and-miss nature of a capture house. Some of the fake apartments have been open for as little for one day before being hit by burglars, and as long as nearly a year without being broken into even once. As Stopford went on to describe, these otherwise uninhabited residences are fully stocked, complete with electronic equipment, lights on timers, and bare but functional furniture, and they tend to be small apartments located in multi-unit housing blocks.

That apartment you pass everyday on the fourth floor, in other words, is not an apartment at all, really, but an elaborate trap run by the police, bristling inside with tiny surveillance cameras and ready to spray invisible chemical markings onto anyone who steps inside—or slips in through the window, as the case may be.

http://gizmodo.com/fully-furnished-fake-houses-in-uk-run-solely-to-trap-bu-1429599161