System Takes Convenience Out of Crime

Jan 1, 2004 12:00 PM

It is unfortunate that the convenience of convenience stores often accommodates both the customer and the criminal. For the consumer, convenience stores provide easy access to groceries, prepared foods, gasoline and other services. From the criminal's perspective, these stores can offer convenient access to money. There is also the occasional temptation for employees to steal.

Warren Equities is familiar to consumers along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Virginia, under the banners of several divisions including Kenyon Oil Company Inc./XtraMart Convenience Stores. From its Connecticut headquarters, Kenyon/XtraMart manages more than 300 convenience stores throughout New England, Maryland, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania. It is one of the largest privately-owned companies in the United States, and posts more than $1 billion in yearly sales.

To protect its customers and employees, the company chose surveillance products from FKI, New Albany, Ind., formerly known as Fire King. Looking to replace analog video systems that used multiplexers and time-lapse recorders, Timothy Brunelle, director of loss prevention at Kenyon/XtraMart, selected FKI's Image Vault digital video surveillance system as a plug-and-play replacement for the VCRs. “The plug-and-play feature allowed the company to use cameras that it already had in place,” Brunelle says.

Currently, the Kenyon/XtraMart stores have an average of 12 cameras per location, all interfacing with cash register point-of-sale systems. Many retail establishments have cash registers that print receipts on compact serial printers, producing so-called point-of-sale (POS) data. The problem with most VHS-based surveillance systems is that POS data is overlaid onto the video, making it difficult to see and virtually impossible to search. Image Vault receives the data as data, keeping it in a cross-indexed database, and it can read non-encrypted serial ASCII data from a variety of cash register models and other serial data devices such as access control systems and ATMs.

Brunelle has already used the system to review video data for a particular shift that had lower-than-normal sales numbers. As he was viewing the data, he actually saw a clerk under-ringing sales. “He was using a new method that I hadn't seen before to circumvent the cash receipt system,” Brunelle says, “but I caught it because it was obvious that the customer had items on the counter to be paid for, yet the clerk was not ringing them up.”

Using an unconventional method to open the cash drawer and collect the money, the clerk apparently assumed the loss of revenue would go undetected. A simple review of the video provided Brunelle with enough evidence to file charges.

“I have found it very convenient to have the POS interface journal/receipt tape scrolling while viewing video,” Brunelle says. “In the old days I would have a journal tape unrolled by my feet and have to check off every sale and hope I didn't lose track. Now, I can program the tracking to help identify or flag possible problem areas, the most common being no sales, cancels, returns and [under charging].”

Kenyon/XtraMart initiated the project about two years ago, and systems design and installations have been continuing. The system can handle as many as 16 cameras per store.

“If I put that many cameras into a store using a multiplexer, I would definitely lose images,” Brunelle says. “If I multiplexed 12 cameras at a 72-hour speed, it could be as long as 6 seconds between images, creating a greater risk of missing something important.”

The systems have also been a great help to local and state police. “Law enforcement comes to us when problems occur in the area of our locations hoping to get leads from our external cameras to assist them,” Brunelle says. “It's not uncommon for the police to call and ask us to ‘burn a couple of hours’ for them to review later.”

The system makes it possible for store transactions to be observed remotely, if necessary, while being recorded and archived for review and distribution. This capability can be vital when following up on situations of credit card fraud, checks of insufficient funds or the presentation of false identification.

Each store has a unit that continually stores data on the hard drive as well as onto a removable CD. The unit continues to store data on the hard drive even while the CD is removed or replaced. No information is ever lost, and authenticated video is immediately available. Each CD is an exact, digital, unalterable, watermarked copy complete with the playback software. It can be viewed on any computer with a CD drive, and images can be quickly printed or transmitted to aid in identification or apprehension of suspects.

For the record

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