Sorry, but this sounds fake.
I'm not sure he or anyone else had anything to gain out of lying about this. I had a Canon T2i for quite sometime and it definitely does embed the camera's serial into each captured image.
My reasoning was that it sounded too clean. Either it is fake, and just the written for linkbait (there were enough successful similar articles online to justify someone trying that) or the x-th rewrite of a story.
As another reply to my post here pointed out it orriginated on Reddit, so probably the second thing and I was wrong. Sorry.
Please... this was probably the only real crime solving these guys did all week.
I'm going to leave myself open to the "citation needed" charge by generalizing here, but doesn't most police activity involve pointless traffic stops, traffic direction, prosecution of victimless vice crimes, domestic disturbance calls, and paperwork?
I've heard to much of the story before, it seems like they have mashed a few of the classics together to create it.
Edit: Or maybe I just read the original story on Reddit.