Audio By Carbonatix

Chris Montalbano, a Long Island, New York, homeowner, was very much looking forward to boating season on the East Coast. He pictures using his Sea-Doo FishPro 170 jet ski to soak up the sun and enjoy the region’s coastal waters. On May 7, however, his plans were about to be foiled by thieves who thought they were clever.

That afternoon, the Wi-Fi-powered security camera mysteriously stopped filming his driveway. His camera on the porch revealed that at the same time the camera stopped working, a hooded man driving a silver Dodge Durango hooked the watercraft up to his SUV and drove away—yanking his jet ski from his driveway in broad daylight.

Montalbano was aware that petty crimes have been on the rise in his region—but he never thought his Sea Doo, valued at $25,000, was at risk.

“It went from catalytic converters to Jet Skis, I guess,” he told CBS.

Montalbano thinks thieves jammed the cameras

Looking back, he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that three minutes of footage from the driveway-facing camera was missing, while the porch-facing camera caught the thief red-handed. He thinks they used a signal jammer to tamper with the cameras to avoid being caught.

“They knew what they were doing,” he said. “You see the Jet Ski for one second, and then all of a sudden, it skips for, like, three minutes and there’s nothing. And the Jet Ski is gone, but you don’t know how it left.”

He suspects the thief had been lying in the shadows, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

“They had to have been staking it out and knew. Because you don’t just pull up like that. They knew what they were doing,” Montalbano said.

A security expert jamming isn’t impossible

Michael Graziano, a cybersecurity expert, told the outlet that it’s entirely possible the thief used an illegal Wi-Fi signal disrupter to temporarily disable a camera that’s reliant on the internet to stream footage.

“The camera may have power and be on, but since it loses connection with the internet, there’s no recording that goes to the cloud,” he confirmed. The device gives thieves the ability to cloak themselves and evade being caught committing brazen crimes.

However, there’s hope for those using security cameras. By establishing a hard connection between the camera system and the internet, cameras can’t lose internet access.

“A hardline cable that goes right to the internet, so that would stop someone from jamming it,” he said.

Police are looking for the thief who made off with Montalbano’s Sea Doo. In the meantime, he says he’ll lock up any trailers to avoid future thefts.