We’ve heard all kinds of stories about Apple’s AirTag, a device intended to find lost items, but which we learned could be used to stop an organized gang and even uncover political scams. Apple doesn’t guide them to locate people and there is actually a whole alert system for that.
However, if it is for a good cause, it may be justified. And this is what happened to María, protagonist of a difficult personal story with his now ex-partner and thanks to an AirTag, he managed to be arrested while taking his children without authorization.
Background: an abused mother and a restraining order
It is worth starting by saying that María is not the real name in this story, but rather a fictitious name that we are providing from Applesfera to preserve her anonymity and that of her two children who, at the time this story was told , were 5 years old. and 8 years respectively.
María had suffered abuse for years from her partner and the father of her two children. Both physical and psychological. While it is true that he “never laid hands on the children,” María tells us, he threatened them and made them suffer when he saw their aggressive behavior.
“The kids were really terrified of him.”
María spent years “enduring it so as not to harm the children, but they were already suffering too much from this situation.” So, he gathered his courage and went to the police station to report the mistreatment. There was a quick trial in court for violence against women and A restraining order was filed against her, but not against her children.. The latter worried him a lot.
And, “in a completely absurd and irrational way,” says María, it was established that the father would have the right to see his children two afternoons a week. And even though “the children didn’t even want to see him,” on the recommendation of María’s lawyer, he agreed to let her see the children.
The idea, explains María, was that the restraining order be extended to minors and that it be issued as quickly as possible. However, he was unable to prevent these visits to the children from taking place for two weeks. Through their respective lawyers, they agreed that he would pick them up at a certain point in the city with the help of an intermediary (María’s brother). I had to pick them up at 5:00 p.m. and bring them back at 8:00 p.m. to the same point.
Fear of kidnapping and AirTag as a solution
The agreement also stipulated that the children were not to leave town during the two hours that the father was caring for them. However, Maria was not calm and I was afraid that the father would take them away, which would happen eventually.. And, he told us, he had previously threatened to take the children away and not be able to see them again. An act like this and without authorization, of course, can be considered kidnapping.
María chose to purchase the 4-pack of AirTags, even though she only needed two for this occasion.
It was fall 2021, Apple AirTags had been released a few months ago and María, who had already heard about these locators, thought that they could be the best tool to prevent the father from taking the children out of town without permission. He decided to hide two AirTags (one per child) in the inner lining of his coats. That way the father wouldn’t find out they were carrying this locator.
And here we make a little digression to explain how an AirTag actually workssince it is not a GPS which reports its position in real time. These devices take advantage of the large network of existing Apple devices to send your location whenever you encounter one of these devices.
For example, if the AirTag passes near someone wearing an iPhone, the accessory will take the opportunity to privately connect to that device and send its location to Apple’s servers so that the owner of the AirTag can see. The iPhone owner won’t even know and their data will not be compromised in any way.
Of course, it must be said that if the AirTag is near a certain device that does not belong to its owner for a long time, it issues a notification to report possible unauthorized tracking. Even if it is an Android mobile. Fortunately in this case, María’s ex-partner had an Android device and At that time, the alert system was not in effect for this platform.
First week, good. Second week, danger
Nothing went wrong during the father’s first two visits to the children. According to what the minors themselves told their mother. Their father took them to a city park both days. They didn’t want to go and were eager to return to their mother, but “as much as possible they were entertained and safe.” Meanwhile, she checked the “Search” app on her iPhone to make sure that, indeed, the children had not left town.
However, things got dark in the second week. To begin with, when María’s brother entrusted the children to their father, he “arrived with a very bad attitude.” They argued, but María’s brother did not want to argue in front of the little ones and simply urged her to “take good care of the children and not be a minute late on time planned”.
María spent these afternoons “hooked on the ‘Search’ application” so as not to miss any developments in the children’s situation. And making this phrase his own “think wrong and you will be right”, he regretted having been right in his fears. AirTags were located outside the city. They also updated quite frequently and, seeing how far they had come, he felt that they were on a Cercanías train.
María wanted to immediately notify the police, although those who accompanied her tried to calm her down in case it was a false alarm. However, they tried to contact the father by telephone and he communicated all the time. “He had blocked us all,” says María, referring to the fact that she could not contact him from her own phone, but also through those of her brother and mother.
Notice to the police and hunt for the fugitive
Image generated with DALL-E 3 and Photoshop
Given the circumstances, María immediately called the police, although, because of her nervous state, she admits, “she ended up calling the agent” who helped her because he did not fully understand the situation. With more calm and composure, his brother picked up the phone and explained the entire situation to the officer.
He explained everything in broad terms. The restraining order as a precedent, the father’s continued threats and, most importantly, the fact that they had conclusive evidence that the children were not within the agreed radius. Thanks to the AirTag, they knew he had gone to another city several miles away.
Within minutes, up to three police officers showed up at María’s home. There, already telling them out loud the complete story of the AirTag, they were able to feel that the children were at their paternal grandmother’s house. They didn’t know if they were still with their father or not. They felt that by being with their grandmother they would not be in danger, but in any case he broke the visitation agreement having taken them without authorization several kilometers from the agreed area.
María remembers that one of the agents had warned that “perhaps he would arrive at the agreed time to return the children again”, but he almost immediately ruled out this hypothesis when he saw that he did not Only a few minutes left before 8:00 p.m., the time it was supposed to happen, and given the distance, it would take about an hour and a half to arrive.
Arrest and happy ending for (almost) all parties
One of the AirTags that María hid in the inner lining of the coats and which helped locate the minors
“I remember those very cloudy moments. I just wanted to get my children back, hold them in my arms and never let them see this unfortunate man again.” This is how María describes this moment when Officers notified another unit near the home where the children were located. Given her nervous state, two of the three officers who had gone to her house decided to stay with her to keep her calm.
“They informed me everything,” he remembers. “They told me a patrol was going to come to the house and not only would they bring the kids in, but they would also arrest him for breaking the agreement.” Indeed, the same thing happened. Although it is true that the show went very quickly and María was able to be with her children again at dinner time, she says that it seemed like an eternity.
“They came shaking and didn’t stop crying all night.” Despite the good treatment given by the police officers who took them home, the situation was stressful for the children. And before all that, the miners say their father “yelled at them the whole way.” “Now you will live with me and your grandmother,” he told them. He also threatened to beat them if they tried to flee or contact their mother, uncle or maternal grandmother.
“Children are the most important thing and luckily they were safe”
It must be said that the children’s paternal grandmother behaved as expected in these cases. She herself had also called the police when she saw her son appear with the children, knowing the father’s bad intentions and knowing what the visitation agreement looked like. He knew he didn’t have permission to take them there and since his son ignored his advice, he should have had no choice but to call the police to have his own son arrested. “It was very hard,” says his grandmother, María.
At the legal level, this story has become somewhat bizarre. The relevant complaint for this attempted kidnapping was added to the ongoing mistreatment case. Although María does not want to give too much explanation about the current situation of her ex-spouse, she recognizes that it was a turning point and that thanks to this she managed to make the restraining order effective also for the children. They, who are the most important thing for María, live happily with their mother, their uncle and their maternal grandmother.
And everything, as María sums it up well, “thanks to an Apple gadget that I didn’t even know if it would work”. For our part, we can only thank María and her little ones for wanting to tell us their story.
Cover image | Generated with DALL-E 3 and Photoshop
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