The CEA (Construction Equipment Association) has announced a new CESAR reward scheme for Police officers who identify stolen construction plant, agricultural machinery and ATVs (All-Terrain Vehicles).
The ‘CESAR Champion’ initiative will recognise the efforts of any police officer who uses the CESAR technology to identify a stolen piece of plant or agricultural machinery.
Dave Luscombe, CEA’s head of special projects explains the procedure; “If a police officer, while conducting any 
check on an ATV, a piece of agricultural machinery or a piece of construction plant, using any of the CESAR technologies, and identifies that the asset is stolen, he/she will qualify for an ‘exclusive and limited edition’ CESAR Champion pin badge .”
There are three different enamel pin badges up for grabs, one for each of the different assets, an ATV, a tractor, and an earthmover. Dave continued:“The police officer who makes a recovery, once it has been logged with the CESAR hotline, should then send a tweet about the discovery and tag @CESARscheme. If the officer is unable to tweet, then he/she should contact me via email (dave.luscombe@thecea.org). I can then arrange for the officer to receive his/her pin badge and award card.”
The pin badges and the award cards have been delivered and have now been distributed to the CESAR team in readiness for the ‘CESAR Champion’ initiative to commence. Nick Mayell, Datatag’s CESAR police training and
liaison officer and security expert, has trained 1000’s of police officers, from across the 43 UK Constabularies on CESAR identification, and the officers are ready and primed for the ‘CESAR Champion’ challenge!
The intention will be to present a special achievement award to the police officer, who has collected the most CESAR pin badges, at the CEA annual conference and Plantworx ‘Awards for Excellence’ ceremony. This year’s event fell victim to the COVID19 pandemic and has since been postponed until 2021 – the date will be announced in the coming months.
About the CESAR Scheme
The CESAR Scheme, which is powered by Datatag technology, was first launched in 2007 and is a multi-layered system that includes tamper-evident warning and registration plates, RFID transponders, a microdot identification system comprising of between 500-1000 microdots which are scattered around the machine and forensic DNA.
Once fitted these technologies are almost impossible to remove successfully, and when the machine is registered on Datatag’s secure database, these unique details are accessible to the police 24/7enabling them to identify any machine at the roadside night or day very quickly. The CESAR website also has a “Hot Button” to instantly report stolen machinery.
In addition, Datatag has a manned 24hour international call centre specifically for CESAR and the scheme is also part of Interpol’s training programme – so its reach is worldwide.
The ‘CESAR Champion’ initiative begins with immediate effect – let the competition begin!
Dave Luscome can be contacted at dave.luscombe@thecea.org
For further information on CESAR click here
