In 2006, APV was the victim of a well-planned fraudulent equipment hire that resulted in the theft of hundreds of thousands of US dollars worth of production equipment from our Hong Kong headquarters. We have now learned that at least two independent production companies in the Netherlands have been preyed upon by thieves operating in exactly the same manner -- and whom we believe are in fact the same criminals.
Fortunately, one company, Cam-A-Lot (www.camalot.nl), had seen a video APV created and posted on YouTube after the 2006 theft. Our video contained CCTV images of the thieves, one of whom bore an uncanny resemblence to their "client" in Amsterdam; a timely email and a few international phone calls later, and they declined the rental. The other company was not so fortunate, and since they had not seen our video, went ahead with a hire of HD equipment to the same man. Their equipment was stolen.
Please help us circulate the message about these thieves to our colleagues in the indpendent production industry worldwide. They are operating in exactly the same fashion, and they are working in very diverse geograhical locations, but we are certain they are the same people. We doubt very seriously that local police anywhere will try very hard to apprehend them, and we have no confidence that Interpol will do anything, either. That leaves it up to us to protect ourselves; please help us spread the word.
apv - asia pacific vision ltd.
hong kong - 1253a telecom house, 3 gloucester road, hong kong - tel [852] 2827-2122 singapore - 55b temple street, singapore 058600 - tel [65] 6222-2245 info@apv.asia