Chicagoland-based sports photographer reeling after having $22,000 in camera equipment stolen while covering COPA America

CHICAGO — A sports photographer based out of the Chicago area is searching for answers after having thousands of dollars-worth of camera equipment stolen while covering the COPA America in California.

Mohammed Alam, a Carol Stream-based photographer with 20 years of experience shooting professional sporting events, said he was tasked with covering Argentina, Brazil and the United States during the tournament.

Alam’s tournament coverage started when Argentina and Canada faced off in Atlanta in late June, and continued with him being assigned to a game once every 24-48 hours as he traveled around the country.

It was a familiar detail for Alam, who has covered Super Bowls, Stanley Cups, NBA Finals, national championships and more.

But tragedy struck in early July when Alam was covering Brazil’s game against Colombia at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the last group stage game before the knockout stage began.

Alam said he had finished shooting the game and was headed back to the photo workroom where he set his gear down, but spotted some colleagues and went to say hello.

About 10 minutes later, Alam returned to the area where he set his bags down to pack everything up, and found that some of his gear was gone.

“I come back to my table and my main gear, which is a Sony 400 2.8 lens and the camera body is a Sony a1 body with a grip, batteries and my card with all the images, still in the camera, I come back and that rig is gone,” Alam said.

According to Alam, all of the stolen gear was worth about $22,000.

“The lens itself is $12,000 retail, plus tax. The camera body, $6,500 plus tax. The grip is, I think $450 plus tax, the cards alone were $300 each and then the monopod and the polarizing filter, the combination of those two are about $1,000,” Alam said.

Alam said the workroom was a secure area, to which only credentialed photographers were supposed to have access, but security personnel were only placed at the front entrance of the room, and the back door had none.

“That just didn’t make sense. So people can come and go from the backdoor, but to get in the front, you have to be cleared,” Alam said.

Alam was not the only victim that night, he said he was told that two others had their credit cards and cash stolen from their bags that night in a different room.

“So the police officer came, took our testimonies and, you know, said that this was a multi-victim crime. Mine obviously was the most expensive,” Alam said.

According to Alam, the detective investigating the incident is still waiting to get security video from the stadium.

Following the theft, Alam said he was not approached by officials from CONMEBOL, the sports association that hosted the COPA America, about the incident.

In the 20 years he has been shooting sporting events, Alam said nothing like this has ever happened.

“I’ve never had anything stolen from me,” Alam said.

Without his gear, Alam’s coverage of the COPA America was temporarily put on hold. Thanks to help from Sony Professional Services, he was able to borrow the gear to finish his coverage, but his stolen equipment is something he will have to cover out of pocket.

“It’s, you know, money hard earned from all my work and now it’s gone,” Alam said. “And now I’m trying to sell old gear, trying to scrounge up whatever I can to reinvest in what I lost.”

Alam said prior to the incident, he felt that security provided by CONMEBOL was ill-suited for the tournament.

“The entire organization, CONMEBOL, how they ran their security measures and whatnot, was absolutely horrid from day one,” Alam said. “Very disorganized, very unprofessional, very humanly demeaning in how they treated us as media members.

Visit Alam’s Instagram page for more information on his work.

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