College Station business owner uses air tags to track mother-daughter thieves at Houston chop shop

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Thieves were allegedly caught in Houston last weekend after stealing roofing material from houses in South College Station.

Owner of Aggieland Exteriors, Tim Gafford, told KBTX he noticed his materials were stolen three separate times in the past few months off home construction sites in Southern Pointe subdivision off Highway 6 in South College Station.

“We just kept getting materials jacked. We kept trying to figure out who’s taking our materials. They (presumed thieves) would show up right after they’d (materials) get dropped. They would show up at nighttime and we just couldn’t figure it out,” Gafford said.

Gafford decided to use air tags to track the thieves down.

“It was Friday night the bundles came. We went ahead and put the cameras out, put the air tags in the top [of the bundle], they came, they loaded it into the truck,” detailed Gafford. “It was 5:45 a.m. that morning and the air tag was pinging in Houston, so we got the truck right away and took off.”

Gafford created a case with the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office where that case was passed to the Houston Police Department.

Through that case, Gafford relayed that it was a mother and daughter who were arrested by Houston police at a chop shop in the area where they were selling the materials.

Nathan Dennis with the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office, explained how thieves sometimes travel in order to steal.

“Individuals will leave the area they are known throughout, maybe by law enforcement, and they’ll go to other places where they think they may not be identified, where no one really knows them. So, it’s harder to be identified,” Dennis explained.

Opportunity thefts, as Dennis said this one was, are fairly common.

“Anybody could be out and see something, and take advantage of other folks and steal things that are not locked up or just out in the open,” shared Dennis.

35 construction site thefts were reported in 2023 in Brazos County, 31 construction in 2022, and only six have been reported so far in 2024.

The Bryan Police Department also reported similar numbers. Bryan police told KBTX there were about two to three reports per month on average for construction site thefts over the past three years.

“Construction type materials; tools, things like that. Those are targeted because it’s so hard to prove that the person that has them in their possession, that it is not really their stuff because they don’t have serial numbers, IDs, and things like that,” Dennis added.

Deputy Dennis shared ways to avoid opportunity thefts like this by storing items out of sight and locking the items up. He also suggested motion-detecting lights and camera systems. Marking your items when you can is another way to help police track them down if they’re stolen.

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