Daniel Eran DilgerAn investigation into frequent thefts at American airport security screening checkpoints resulted in a stolen iPad being tracked to a TSA officer's home, using Apple's 'Find My Phone' iCloud service.
In a sting operation conducted by Brian Ross of ABC News, iPads and cash were left behind in airport security checkpoints.
In nine of the ten airports visited, passengers were asked to return to pick up their belongings, which were clearly labeled with their name and contact information.
However, after an iPad went missing in Orlando, the news organization tracked it back to the home of TSA officer Andy Ramirez, where reporters confronted the man and asked him if he had it. He repeatedly said he did not have it.
The reporters then set off iCloud's audible alert, which began ringing inside Ramirez's house. Only after taking off his TSA uniform did he return and acknowledge that he did in fact have it, but he continued to insist that he did not take it, initially blaming his wife for obtaining it.
"I'm so embarrassed," Ramirez told reporters. "My wife says she got the iPad and brought it home," he said.
When told he was filmed handling the iPad at airport security, and that it was tracked back to his home afterward, Ramirez stopped talking.
The TSA said Ramirez is no longer working for the agency. It noted that it has fired 11 officers for theft this year, and a total of 381 dating back to 2003.
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58 Comments
Go iCloud. Go Apple. ...when only the very best will do.
Best part of the whole article
Whenever I fly and have to go through those security checkpoints, I don't let the trays with my stuff in them out of my view for a single second. I walk through at the same exact pace that my trays are passing through the machine. I don't trust any of those people.
Last time I needed a tray for an iPad, a tray for a Macbook and a tray for a knapsack. I left a wireless Apple keyboard in the knapsack.
After the trays all passed through the x-ray machines, they said that they were suspicious of my Apple keyboard and I had to take it out of the bag to show them that the image that confused the woman watching the x-ray machine wasn't actually explosives or something, but it was just the batteries inside of the Apple keyboard.
I also read about a new rule from the TSA stating that iPads do not have to be taken out of bags anymore, but laptops do. Apparently the TSA geniuses at the airport that I visited didn't get that memo yet.
Articles abound about people tracking their lost or stolen iDevices. You see them every day in news reports. How stupid does a thief have to be to NOT know the devices can be tracked?
This idiot didn't even attempt to wipe it? Geez. Not that in condoning theft..seriously.