Two masked robbers were caught by the patrol thanks to a small AirTag, hidden in the scooter they had just stolen in Marseille. Apple technology strikes again.
It seems that against the bandits, technology has just won a new victory. Early Sunday evening in Marseille, two men with hidden faces thought they had succeeded in their theft, but that was without counting on the AirTag, Apple’s famous tracker, hidden in the stolen TMax scooter. Thanks to the small object weighing around ten grams, the police were able to trace the thieves in the evening.
No luck for the robbers: the stolen TMax was traced
In Marseille, it seems that you shouldn’t “get fired up” too quickly. Sunday evening, two masked individuals burst into a hair salon on 11e district, armed with a knife and a tear gas canister. After robbing customers and stealing several objects, they fled on board a TMax scooter belonging to a customer of the salon.
Except that the robbers were unaware that a small AirTag device was hidden inside the two-wheeler. For the record, the tool that transmits its location to nearby Apple devices was initially designed to find keys or luggage, but many recent cases illustrate their usefulness for finding lots of other objects, devices or vehicles.
In the Marseille city, the victim had “hidden” the beacon in his scooter, no doubt as a precaution, but this is what allowed the authorities to follow the robbers.
A saving AirTag!
Informed of the presence of the beacon, the police waited for it to come out of its sleep. The same day, just a little later in the evening, the beacon that had disappeared from radar screens for a while reappeared, in a city located in the same district. The anti-crime brigade (Bac) then concentrated its efforts on the scene and spotted two individuals corresponding to the description, aged around twenty.
Barely three hours after the theft, the two suspects were apprehended and placed in police custody. The AirTag enabled law enforcement to quickly resolve the case, using geolocation.
The use of geolocated beacons to track criminals is becoming more and more common. This episode in Marseille illustrates how everyday gadgets, diverted from their initial use, become valuable tools for law enforcement, thereby strengthening the means of justice.
Source : Provence
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