CHESTER CO., Pa. (WPVI) – A family from Chester County, Pennsylvania, searches for answers after it is discovered an intruder was inside their home.
The suspect was videotaped by his ring doorbell surveillance camera earlier this year. Strangely enough, her surveillance camera caught him coming out but not going inside.
And their home security system never registered that the man was inside.
The case took investigators and security experts by surprise, and you may have asked how secure your camera system is.
The man in question appears to be trying to disassemble the ring camera. He looks at it from different angles and then withdraws to Nemo Perera’s house.
The family observed this while eating out one February evening.
“My heart sank and unfortunately we made the mistake of showing our four young children the video so they would panic. So my wife called the police and we ran home,” said Perera.
What’s worrying is that the Pereras don’t know how the intruder got into their house.
The family has two Wi-Fi networks. One controls his ADT security system, which was partially hard-wired, and the other controls his doorbell system.
However, the system did not detect the intruder inside, nor did ADT motion sensors detect any activity inside.
Perera said, “So we have the ring logs and they show that we left the house at 7:11 pm and the ring stopped working from that point on, with the exception of this one picture that was taken at 7:45 pm.”
Security expert Dave Pearson owns 215 Secure. He has since been hired to improve the Perera’s security system.
“Personally, I think someone turned off the Wi-Fi system. If they know the password to get on the Wi-Fi, that’s a pretty easy way to get in,” Pearson said.
But Perera says he didn’t have standard Wi-Fi passwords and accessing his Wi-Fi networks would have been difficult. He says other security experts told him that he may have been a victim of wireless interference.
There, criminals use an illegal device to send out an explosion of synchronized radio waves that cripple Wi-Fi networks. Despite the hefty fines for owning one, they are easy to find on the internet for a few dollars.
Pearson says they are a concern
“Wireless signal jammer is a problem and more of a problem these days. It was certainly a problem for Nemo,” he said.
According to Perera, ADT gave few answers about what happened.
“So we asked our ADT people to explain what was going on and they couldn’t explain it. They’re trying to run it up the flagpole,” Perera said.
Even more amazing, the Pereras say they haven’t found anything stolen.
They suspect that Nemo Perera’s hard drive was copied for business reasons, but security experts say there is no evidence.
Police say they have no suspects or leads, and the Pereras hope someone will spot the intruder and help investigators.
Perera says, “We can’t imagine why. It’s very worrying. To find out what your intention is, it would be very important because I think it mystifies the police too. They wonder why they did that too to have.”
ADT released a statement to Action News stating:
“We investigated Mr. Perera’s claim and approached him directly. We found no evidence of any attempted hacking or jamming attempt.”