Jason Kandel

Man Faces Charges in $200K Lighting Equipment Heist

A man faces charges of receiving stolen property after police tracked a semi-truck of lighting equipment worth nearly $200,000 to a residential area in Granada Hills, police said.

The pictures provided to NBC4 show some of the materials recovered. Police say about 90 percent of what was stolen was recovered.

The truck was taken from a yard used by the movie industry, miles away in Sun Valley, according to detectives. The truck was stolen in the evening hours of Super Bowl Sunday.

The company that owned the lighting equipment notified police the following day. The truck was equipped with GPS tracking which led police to the stolen goods, detectives said.

Detectives also say the company had knowledge of recent thefts and had seen the NBC4 I-Team's story on this issue days before. Organized gangs have been executing elaborate heists to steal millions of dollars from Hollywood, but where much of it ends up is untraceable.

Such stolen goods have been recovered in places like Argentina and France. Police suggest that stepping up security would help catch the thieves and advise companies to add special marking on equipment to make their items easily identifiable.

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