California woman fed-up with mail thieves catches them by sending herself an Apple AirTag
A shrewd Santa Maria Valley resident used a cutting-edge tracking device to outsmart two mail thieves.
The anonymous woman mailed herself a package containing an Apple AirTag, even though she had been the victim of mail theft at the Los Alamos Post Office on several occasions.
The woman reported the theft of the package to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, KTLA reported.
Using the AirTag, police found Virginia Francesca Lara and Donald Ashton, the two suspects, quickly. They were found in possession of items that seemed to have been stolen from over a dozen other people in addition to the victim’s mail.
The Sheriff’s Office praised the victim’s ingenuity and asked others to report any suspicious activity to the authorities. Lara and Ashton were accused of conspiracy, identity theft, credit card theft, and having stolen checks in their possession. Under a $50,000 bond, Lara had been held at the Northern Branch Jail.
“The Sheriff’s Office would like to commend the victim for her proactive solution, while highlighting that she also exercised appropriate caution by contacting law enforcement to safely and successfully apprehend the suspects,” the sheriff’s office stated.
In the meantime, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City announced a program to give away free AirTags to locals in an effort to stop the rising number of car thefts.
In a related incident, a man from Toronto tracked his stolen SUV thousands of miles across the world to the Middle East with the help of an AirTag.
