Amazon dognapper trapped by his app
A DELIVERY driver who stole a pedigree miniature schnauzer while dropping off an Amazon package was caught thanks to an app that tracked his precise steps.
Levi Pislea, 22, snatched the 11-month-old dog, named Wilma, after delivering pet food to the £1.5million gated house.
Heartbroken owner Richard Guttfield, 52, initially contacted Amazon to ask the driver if he had seen anything suspicious or had accidentally left a gate open.
But when Pislea’s manager checked a GPS app tracking the driver’s exact movements, it showed he had walked around the side of the house and into the garden where the dog had been.
Pislea, who worked for an independent delivery firm, denied going near the owner’s garden or seeing any dogs.
But after checking the app, his manager visited his home, where he found the puppy – worth around £1,200 – and reported Pislea to the police.
Pislea claimed he had found Wilma a mile from the house and did not realise it was the same dog his manager had asked about.
He denied theft but was found guilty by High Wycombe magisthe
Guilty: Driver Levi Pislea trates on Tuesday where he was sentenced to a 12-month community order. He was also ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £705 in court costs.
Andrew Morgan, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘There was never any dispute that Pislea took the dog when he made his delivery.
‘What’s been demonstrated is that he stole it rather than found it as he claimed.
‘Pislea lied when he said he hadn’t been near the garden – a lie that was proven by the tracker data of his steps. And it is clear the garden was secure, meaning dog could not have got out on its own.’
Mr Morgan added: ‘ He denied any knowledge of the dog when directly asked about it, and made no effort to reunite it with its owner over the four days it was in his possession – all of which indicated his intention to keep it.’
Mr Guttfield, a company director, had been playing snooker with a friend at his luxury home in Buckinghamshire on April 27 last year when the driver left the order at the front of the house.
When Mr Guttfield noticed Wilma had vanished, he and his daughter Emily, 17, searched the village with no luck, so he contacted Amazon to ask if the driver had seen her.
As the Daily Mail reported at the time, he emailed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and after several conversations with the logistics team, the firm agreed to check the delivery van’s GPS tracking software.
It is believed the GPS log also showed Pislea had gone home before the next delivery. Wilma was found there four days later.
Mr Guttfield’s property is protected by CCTV cameras, but the security system was in ‘geofencing’ mode – meaning it was set to operate only when his phone was away from the house.
He has since changed the setting to continuous monitoring.
Mr Guttfield said at the time: ‘Our homes are all exposed to these drivers and the vast majority of them are great. But some will take advantage.
‘It’s just a miracle I got Wilma back. She was distraught when she was returned and was in quite a bad way.
‘But she soon got back to normal within a week. She’s doing fine now. She’s lovely.’