AirPods help police find stolen Ferrari worth around $575,000

Police in Waterbury, Connecticut, were able to find a stolen Ferrari worth over half a million dollars, all thanks to a pair of Apple AirPods left behind by the vehicle's owner.

On September 16, the Waterbury Police Department (WPD) was notified about a stolen Ferrari 812 GTS, stolen from the city of Greenwich, Connecticut, and valued at approximately $575,000. The WPD's Auto Theft Task Force located the vehicle with the help of the owner's Apple AirPods, which were in the car when it was stolen.

Apple's $129 wireless earbuds support tracking through the Find My app, which is how police were able to locate the stolen Italian supercar. AirPods can broadcast their location to an iPhone whenever it is nearby.

As reported by WFSB, the stolen vehicle was found near a gas station on South Main Street in Waterbury, Connecticut. When police attempted to pull the vehicle over, the suspect escaped but left his iPhone in the stolen Ferrari.

Police were able to use the iPhone in the vehicle to identify the driver, Dion Schontten, aged 22, a repeat offender. On September 26, he was found driving a stolen Acura and was brought into police custody.

While stolen or lost property is typically found through the use of AirTags, it was two different Apple products that proved useful in this case — a pair of AirPods and an iPhone. If the owner of the Ferrari hadn't forgotten their AirPods, and if the suspect hadn't left his iPhone behind, police may not have resolved the situation nearly as quickly.

13 Comments

eriamjh 1760 comments · 17 Years

About 1 month ago

I just realized that if you want to track an iPhone owner and not have them notified, leave AirPods on them, around them, near them, etc. instead of AirTags.

Plus, there are dumb@sses with cars worth half a million dollars who don’t have GPS trackers installed.

ihatescreennames 1971 comments · 19 Years

eriamjh said:

I just realized that if you want to track an iPhone owner and not have them notified, leave AirPods on them, around them, near them, etc. instead of AirTags.
Plus, there are dumb@sses with cars worth half a million dollars who don’t have GPS trackers installed.

Not really. My wife leaves her work-assigned AirPods in my car occasionally and I get a notification that they have been following me around. That notification includes a map and a red line showing my route/s where the AirPods were with me.

beowulfschmidt 2348 comments · 12 Years

eriamjh said:

I just realized that if you want to track an iPhone owner and not have them notified, leave AirPods on them, around them, near them, etc. instead of AirTags.
Plus, there are dumb@sses with cars worth half a million dollars who don’t have GPS trackers installed.

The fact that they paid half a million dollars for the car doesn't automatically imply that it's worth that much. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

mebbert 57 comments · 17 Years

Ironically, my son’s first-gen AirPods Pro were stolen this week and we couldn’t track them. Seems like they only check in when opened? Next day, they were removed from his FindMy because you can’t lock them to your iCloud account. I don’t understand why Apple makes so many products secure, but can’t lock your AirPods.

Anyway, glad they found their freaking Ferrari with their AirPods.

iOS_Guy80 899 comments · 5 Years

ihatescreennames said:

eriamjh said:

I just realized that if you want to track an iPhone owner and not have them notified, leave AirPods on them, around them, near them, etc. instead of AirTags.
Plus, there are dumb@sses with cars worth half a million dollars who don’t have GPS trackers installed.

Not really. My wife leaves her work-assigned AirPods in my car occasionally and I get a notification that they have been following me around. That notification includes a map and a red line showing my route/s where the AirPods were with me.

So do AirPods have the same functionality as AirTags using Find My?