Bonsai trees have always been a source of great fascination to people. They are perfect miniatures, grown in pots small enough to sit on a windowsill. You have to keep reminding yourself that these trees are actually real and identical to their larger cousins in all respects except their size. Rather like other small and perfectly well-formed artifacts, bonsai trees command quite a high price in the marketplace and so it doesn't come as a great surprise to find that they also attract the attention of thieves. It seems that quite a flourishing business has evolved, in which they are stolen from the homes of growers and collectors, then repotted and trimmed by unscrupulous dealers, to be sold on, at good prices, to unsuspecting buyers.One of Britain's top collectors of bonsai trees, Paul Widdington, believes that he has found a solution, however. After losing his life's work, valued at £ 250.000, when burglars broke into his home one night, Paul decided to look into the possibilities of electronically tagging the trees he bought as a replacement. This involves injecting a microchip the size of a grain of rice into the trunk of each tree. Each chip is a laser-etched with information which is stored in a central register held by the police. Paul is quite aware that this kind of data-tagging doesn't prevent thieves from stealing the trees in the first place, although it may increase the chances of getting them back. So he's also installing a security alarm system, complete with infra-red detectors, in his home.
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