Google Street View Helps Dutch Police ID Thieves

[Lone_Star_Dem]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch police have arrested twin brothers on suspicion of robbery after their alleged victim spotted a picture of them following him on Google’s Street View map application, a spokesman said Friday.

Paul Heidanus, a police spokesman in the town of Groningen, said he believed it was the first time Street View images had been used in a Dutch criminal investigation.

“For us, it is unique,” he said.

A 14-year-old boy told police last September he had been robbed of euro165 ($230) and his cell phone after two men dragged him off his bicycle in Groningen, 180 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of the capital, Amsterdam.

The victim called again in March after seeing an image of himself and two men he believed were his attackers on Street View, police said in a statement.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5haewGtrQCcblrJwVAXDCHhRLprrQD98TR8RG5

[EOTE]

1. Can somebody explain this to me?

The Street View Map isn't real time, is it? Or is it that these guys just happened to have been caught on camera at the precise moment that the google team had been photographing that particular street?

[zonkers]

3. Great minds.... (both of us even posted the same minute.)

[EOTE]

6. What a bizarre coincidence.

I wonder what other crimes have been memorialized through Google's Street View.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. No, it's not real time. It was nothing but good luck on the part of the victim

And bad luck on the part of the thieves.

[zonkers]

2. Sheer luck. One in a million. It's not like streetview is updated regularly. The pics of my

neighborhood was up for years. Or am I missing someting.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. You're not missing a thing

It was a wild break of good luck for the victim.

[suninvited]

7. Talk about a stroke of good luck for the victim

and bad luck for the crooks that they happened to be just about to commit a crime on a street the very day one of the google mobiles were driving past.