Have you ever been an eyewitness to a crime?

@swirlie Good grief! How did they manage that without being seen or heard?

@ArishMell

I was a teenager at the time, about 14 year old. I was out with my new boyfriend on a Friday night and instead of going to the drive-in movie like I told everyone at home we were doing, my boyfriend and I drove to a remote country property not far from my parent's farm, where we drove right to the back 40, turned off the motor, then turned on the radio and proceeded to make-out in the back seat of his mother's car.

Suddenly, I heard a loud, continuous noise. At first I thought it was a helicopter landing somewhere in the field when bright lights suddenly appeared and lit up the ground around us.

But it wasn't a helicopter, it was a giant John Deere grain combine that was making it's way across the back of the field, harvesting the wheat as it progressed along it's path.

In fact, when the combine came upon our parked car at the back fence line of the field, it actually went around us and never even stopped.

The thing was this... my father owned that field which was part of his farm and he never rented out the land to anyone.

The other thing was, my favorite job on the farm was driving the combine (in the daytime) and this field was scheduled to be harvested (by me on the weekend) about a week beyond the date of this nighttime occurrence.

So what I did was, I called my Dad on my cellphone from the backseat of my boyfriend's mom's car, which my mother answered ...because my Dad was fast asleep in front of the TV.

She summoned my Dad to the phone at my request and I asked him, why he was going behind my back to harvest the wheat late at night instead of letting me do it on the weekend a week from then?

He replied, "..I think our combine is still parked in the barn, Jen!".

He then asked me, "Where are you anyway?"

I said, "I'm at the back of the field right now and I'm watching someone harvest our grain!".

My Dad ask, "What are you doing at the back of that field, Jen?".

I replied, "Well, I'm making out with my boyfriend Josh, you know, the guy you really liked when I brought him home to meet you earlier this evening?".

He replied, "You told me you guys were going to the drive-in movie!... how did you end up at the back of that 100 acre field?".

I replied, "Well, the movie looked boring so we never went in, then we got back here in Josh's mom's car, which is where I'm sitting right now in the dark."

My Dad asked, "...sitting in his mom's car? Front seat or back seat, Jen?"

I said, "...well, the back seat of course. Why would we drive all the way back here to sit in the front seat once we got here?".

....dead silence on the line....

So I asked him, "Do you think we should call the police.... about the grain?".

"YES!" he shouted! "You call the police and I'll be right over to see what's going on!"

So, I called the police and they met us at the entrance to the field by the gravel roadway, just about the same time my Dad arrived in his pickup truck.

Turns out, there was an organized crime ring in the area that was stealing crops at night in remote locations and selling it on the black market by the truckload, all of which went overseas in a grain-carrying ocean vessel.

Bottom line is, they arrested the combine operator and the team he was working with, but that stuff still goes on to this day.

@swirlie Bizarre but at least one of the gang was arrested.

Theft from farms is a serious problem in the UK too, sometimes of animals but more often of machinery and vehicles.

Other cases that occur from time to time are of dogs chasing, attacking, even killing livestock. In one case someone's pet dog chased a prize rare-breed cow to its death over a cliff.

And much more rarely, peculiar acts of vandalism by people trampling "crop circle" patterns into wheat or barley crops.

@ArishMell
In my case, the combine operator and his entire team got arrested by police.

The problems you mention happening in UK are also happening with equal frequency over here.

@swirlie Oh, that's good - that the rest of the gang was arrested too.

@ArishMell
Yes, that's right. The rest of them were waiting in grain trucks parked along the road.

@swirlie Clearly well-organised. I hope they lost the lot, including any farm vehicles that belonged to them (i.e.not stolen as well).

@ArishMell
Oh yes, everything was confiscated by police and the grain was transferred from their waiting trucks into my father's empty grain storage bins! The trucks themselves had been stolen locally and were simply returned to their rightful owner.

The individuals involved were charged, did some jail time and then were immediately deported back to their country of origin since they were only in Canada on a Work Visa in the first place.

@swirlie Where were they from? A lot of the thefts from farms,and of luxury cars, in Britain seem to be by Britons but selling to overseas gangs. Many of the machines and cars are not even sold intact but broken up and the parts sold on.

@ArishMell
They were all from India and Pakistan.

@swirlie Some of their types over here are from Eastern Europe, particularly Albania, but really, criminals come from anywhere.

@ArishMell
The criminals themselves, the masterminds of the game plan are not the ones driving the grain harvesters nor driving the getaway trucks, those with criminal minds are behind the scenes telling their hired lackeys what to do and when to do it.

@swirlie Yes, and that is what makes it so hard to stamp out, because the gang leaders are often in different countries and careful to stay hidden while the lackeys get caught.

@ArishMell
It doesn't matter what we do or where we go, we leave a trail of something behind which leads right back to our source. That's how the masterminds eventually get caught.