Stealing a Ferrari may seem the perfect crime for some thieves, but the reality is that it rarely goes well. At Applesfera, we’ve covered thefts of all kinds. From iPhones kept in shoes, to applications present in the Apple Store itself… And today we add a Ferrari worth $575,000. More than half a million which would become the big lootexcept for one small detail.
Even though he got away with the stolen Ferrari, he had the trap under his seat
We are located in Connecticut, USA. Over there, Ferrari 812 GTS worth $575,000 stolen in the town of Greenwich on September 16. What the thief didn’t know was that the owner had left his AirPods into the vehicle, turning the luxurious loot into its own trap. The Waterbury Police Department (WPD) was notified of the theft and initiated its Auto Theft Task Force. Your secret weapon? Apple’s Search app.
AirPods, those little wireless earbuds that many of us carry everywhere, have a function that goes beyond playing music: can broadcast your location to a nearby iPhone. This feature, designed to prevent losing headphones, has become a nightmare for thieves. Police used the Find My app to track the AirPods, which led them directly to the stolen Ferrari. The vehicle was located near a gas station on South Main Street, Waterbury.
It wasn’t just the AirPods, he also left his own iPhone inside the Ferrari
When police attempted to stop the vehicle, the suspect fled, but made a crucial mistake: He left his own iPhone in the stolen Ferrari. This oversight allowed the police to know the identity of the thief: Dion Schontten, 22, a known repeat offender. On September 26, ten days after the first flight, the thief has been found driving an Acura (also stolen) and finally taken into police custody.
Stolen Ferrari found and sealed by police
Ironically, since they were two different Apple products that were decisive in this case: the owner’s AirPods and the thief’s iPhone. If the Ferrari owner hadn’t forgotten his AirPods and the suspect hadn’t left his iPhone behind, the police might not have solved the case so quickly.
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It’s curious to see how The Search app has gone beyond a simple location function stolen iPhones, to become a key element in situations that few people could predict. What could have been a nearly $1 million hit for a thief ended up backfiring. We may not think about it until we need it, but having services like Search is a great benefit. And the good thing is is available on more and more deviceswith the iPhone, AirPods or AirTag as the key for situations like the one in today’s story.
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