AirTag Anti-Theft Successes
Elisha Fieldstadt (via Hacker News):
An Apple AirTag led to the arrest of an airline subcontractor accused of stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of items from luggage at a Florida airport.
[…]
Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputies investigating both suspected thefts cross-referenced Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport employees who lived near Kathy Court and found De Luca at his home. He was arrested Aug. 10.
The items reported missing on Aug. 9 were recovered, and De Luca admitted to rummaging through someone else’s luggage and removing an Apple AirTag, the sheriff’s office said. The woman’s luggage has not been found.
Paul Duggan (via Hacker News):
Twice before, this Virginia carpenter had awoken in the predawn to start his work day only to find one of his vans broken into. Tools he depends on for a living had been stolen, and there was little hope of retrieving them. Determined to shut down thieves, he said, he bought a bunch of Apple AirTags and hid the locator devices in some of his larger tools that hadn’t been pilfered. Next time, he figured, he would track them.
It worked.
On Jan. 22, after a third break-in and theft, the carpenter said, he drove around D.C.’s Maryland suburbs for hours, following an intermittent blip on his iPhone, until he arrived at a storage facility in Howard County. He called police, who got a search warrant, and what they found in the locker was far more than just one contractor’s nail guns and miter saws. […] Seth Hoffman, a Howard County police spokesman, said investigators think most of the 15,000 or so tools were stolen in Northern Virginia and Pennsylvania. Howard County is just where they were stashed.
Previously:
Update (2024-06-06): Jeff Weinsier:
Now, an airport employee has been arrested and charged with grand theft, and the incident was caught on camera.
[…]
Garcia’s MacBook, two Apple watches, an iPad, jewelry and designer clothes were all taken.
[…]
The Apple watch signal was coming from a house at 1017 NW 11th Ct.
When she arrived, she said she saw suitcases all over the place, so she started to take video and called 911.
That was lucky since batteries for Apple Watch don’t last as long as for AirTag.
Update (2024-08-22): Ryan Christoffel:
The Los Angeles Times reports that a woman in Santa Barbara County used an AirTag to catch package thieves in her neighborhood.
After dealing with several instances of mail theft—with items stolen directly from her mail box—the woman decided to try a creative solution.
She mailed herself a package containing an Apple AirTag tracking device, on the off chance it would get taken. The bet paid off.
2 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
My favourite story of this kind remains from way back, close to AirTags' launch. In Poland someone hid an AirTag in a candle as he got annoyed that someone was stealing these from his relative's grave. He informed the police and they actually made an arrest.
