CAMBRIDGE (WBZ-AM) -- Police are using technology to outsmart thieves who steal packages off porches this holiday season.
In Cambridge, officers are leaving packages with GPS trackers on porches as bait.
Cambridge Police Officer William LaMonica says that, when the thieves travel, the packages travel with them.
"They travel with vehicles, they travel by foot, they travel by bicycle," he told WBZ-TV. "I think it's quite a lot of people."
"It's the holidays, people don't have money," said Jessica Coates, a package theft victim. "It's hard for the people that have families, like me, I'm a single mother with three kids."
Officers are also going door to door to tell people how to thwart these Christmas thieves.
Elsewhere, in Norwood, a neighbor snapped a photo of a man police say stole a package from a front porch.
That neighbor got the man's license plate, and police caught the man.
"He gave consent to search the car, but the packages were in plain sight anyway," Norwood Police Chief William Brooks told WBZ-TV.
Resident Kate Kirchberg said she didn't even know she was a victim.
"This is the perfect place for somebody, if they were to drive by and say 'oh, I want it,' what's to stop them?" she said.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports