iPhone: a man spends 12 hours in police custody for having taken, by mistake, another’s smartphone in a sports complex

In Nantes, the alleged theft of an iPhone resulted in the custody of an individual who attended the same sports complex as the owner of the smartphone. The man had simply confused it with his own.

The least we can say is that the fifty-year-old athlete will not forget the start of his weekend. Although he had left the sports complex for a while, Friday 1^er March 2024, he was arrested by the police and then placed in custody in Nantes. The man was wrongly accused of having stolen another individual’s iPhone, while the latter was playing a game of table tennis, on the table right next to it.

Table tennis player has his smartphone and ID card stolen during the game

Around 7:30 p.m. Friday, a ping-pong enthusiast calmly ends his day and realizes, upon leaving the Mangin-Beaulieu complex, that his last iPhone has… disappeared. He had placed his mobile, worth more than 1,000 euros, on a platform, immediately thinking that someone had taken it. A rather human reaction, considering the value of the merchandise, adding that his identity card was on the back of the device.

The athlete immediately files a complaint. Everything goes very quickly, since he manages to geolocate his mobile at Place du Commerce. The route taken makes him think that the thief took the tram, which gives an advantage to the police, who were not asking for so much.

The player boards a patrol from the BAC, the anti-crime brigade, which helps him follow the trail of the iPhone, which is heading towards Beaulieu Island.

The defendant had confused the stolen iPhone with his own, and was preparing to return it to where he had taken it

The geolocation tool does its part of the work, luck does the rest. In the geolocated zone, which is strangely located near the sports complex (which closes permanently at 11 p.m.), we only find one individual, a man in his fifties, who is arrested. It is then almost 11 p.m. Shocked, the owner of the apple mobile said he recognized the alleged thief, telling the police that he had seen him playing table tennis at the same time as him.

The accused may say that he made a mistake, but he is taken to the police station and is kept in good custody of the families. He will remain at the station for twelve hours, time to be heard and to speak with a lawyer.

After checking the facts, the police end up believing the version of the unjustly imprisoned fifty-year-old, who says he confused the other player’s smartphone with his own. At the time he was arrested, he was actually on his way to return the device where he had accidentally taken it. The Nantes public prosecutor’s office ended up, fortunately, exonerating him.

Source : West France