Theft has its risks and unfortunately, often times it goes well for the thief and at other times, hopefully increasingly, it goes badly. This is what happened at the beginning of the year to a thief from Barcelona who ended up being arrested in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. Between He obtained loot including Apple products and reached 4,000 dollars generally.
Unfortunately for the scammer and for the benefit of the victim, in this stolen equipment were AirPods. Obviously, no one likes having anything stolen, especially headphones which usually cost no less than 200 dollars. However, They played a key role in the arrest of the thief a few hours later.
AirPods aren’t GPS locators, but they have plenty of them
As some local media report, the theft took place a few months ago in Sants-Montjuïc, a district of the city of Barcelona. In a single robbery and a single person, he managed to escape with up to 4,000 dollars of loot. Fortunately for the victim, there was no violence and he did not suffer physical violence.
The thief was finally arrested by the Barcelona Urban Guard, although it was not in the city of Barcelona where the incident occurred, but in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, a well-known municipality in the metropolitan area . The urban police themselves confirmed this with a message in X, saying that they had managed to recover what w as stolen.
Image: Barcelona Urban Guard
However, the authorities did not arrive there by chance, but rather thanks to the location of the AirPods
Of course, there is a certain inaccuracy in what the urban police commented on and that is that AirPods do not act as a GPS tracker. AirTags and other Apple devices compatible with the “Search” network don’t act this way either. And they don’t really send their location constantly and in real time, but rather every few minutes they send it to the servers. And in cases like AirPods, requiring another device to act as a beacon.
To do this, AirPods can communicate anonymously and silently with another Apple device like an iPhone, iPad or Mac (even if they are not the same owner) and send their location through them. This must have happened with these stolen AirPods, fortunately they must have been in a very specific position and in the middle of the street, allowing the Urban Police to locate the thief and arrest him.
So yes, although sometimes this is not enough to locate a thief, we see how Apple’s “Search” network manages to discover the location of thieves so that victims can also recover their belongings. And you don’t have to go to Florida to see success stories, but in our country it is already a valuable element.
Cover image | Barcelona Urban Guard and Omid Armin on Unsplash
In Applesfera | iPhone anti-theft mode: how to activate Apple’s new feature
In Applesfera | This is the only way to know if your AirPods are real or fake
