Crime blotter: AirTag helps police catch car thief

Arrests are made from mobile phone thefts in Mobile, a TikTok user tells his MacBook theft story, and an AirPods thief is caught in the act, all in this week's Apple Crime Blotter.

The latest in an occasional AppleInsider series, looking at the world of Apple-related crime.

AirTag helps police catch car thief

After a car was stolen from a gas station in Florida, an AirTag attached to the keys helped police recover the car.

According to the Cape Coral Police Department, the black Jeep Wrangler was stolen from a Mobil Gas Station on March 2. Police followed the signal to a residence, at which point multiple security videos from neighbors showed a man parking the stolen jeep and entering his home.

The AirTag and keys were discovered, "concealed inside storage bins with Christmas decorations in the garage." The accused thief was arrested and charged with Burglary of an Unoccupied Conveyance, Grand Theft Motor Vehicle, and Petit Theft $100 or More but Less Than $750.

Two arrested for iPhone thefts in Alabama

Yes, mobile phones have been stolen in Mobile.

According to WKRG, two people were arrested in late February for stealing 32 iPhone 16 handsets from a data center at the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center.

One of the two accused, who is 45, was charged with first-degree receiving stolen property. The other person, who is 19, was charged with first-degree property theft.

TikTok user tells story of his stolen and found MacBook

In a viral TikTok video in early February, a Cleveland-based TikTok user named Matt Swartzen told the story of how his MacBook and AirPods were stolen from his car, how and he tracked them using Find My iPhone.

According to the video, Swartzen had followed the signal to a mobile repair shop, in which he was told that someone had tried to sell them a laptop, but had failed because "he didn't have the code."

Swartzen then followed the AirPods' signal, and found the AirPods, their case, some medicine, and other stolen items from the car which had been dumped on the ground. He later tried to follow the MacBook signal again and eventually found it hidden in some tall grass.

The computer, he said, was found mostly undamaged and usable.

Man accused of stealing AirPods caught on camera, sentenced

On Christmas night, a 47-year-old man broke into a home in Ashford, Kent, in the U.K. and stole numerous items, including cash, jewellery, bank cards, handbags, and a pair of AirPods, per SWNS

After the residents returned home to find their residence ransacked, officers used the AirPod signal to track them, ultimately finding the accused thief at a nearby address, where he was photographed.

Kent Police released the video:

After admitting to the burglary, the accused thief was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

The case against West Virginia's anti-Apple lawsuit

In mid-February, West Virginia's state attorney general announced that he was suing Apple. He accused the company of "internally acknowledging that Apple knowingly enables distribution of [child sexual abuse material, but that] Apple has maintained a product ecosystem that actively manages a user's content in ways that materially facilitate CSAM's persistence, accessibility, and dissemination."

One tech expert alleges that the suit will actually hurt more than it helps.

Writing for Techdirt, Mike Masnick argues that Attorney General JB McCuskey "if he succeeds, is building an extraordinarily effective legal defense mechanism for child predators."

"The fact that West Virginia's AG office— staffed with actual lawyers, supplemented by outside private counsel— apparently didn't bother to read the existing Fourth Amendment jurisprudence before filing this case is, frankly, staggering," Masnick writes.

Why is that?

"The moment a court orders Apple to conduct those scans, any CSAM those scans find becomes evidence obtained through a warrantless government search— and under well-established Fourth Amendment doctrine, that evidence gets excluded."

He continues, explaining "Defense attorneys will move to suppress it. They will win. And without the CSAM itself as evidence, convictions become nearly impossible."

Man arrested in Brazil was part of "Tropa do iPhone 17 Pro Max" gang

A man arrested after he was caught in the act of snatching a gold chain from a victim, during the dispersal of a street carnival in downtown Rio de Janeiro, was also part of a notorious iPhone theft ring.

According to the Brazilian news outlet Mixvale, the man arrested was also part of a criminal syndicate known as "Tropa do iPhone 17 Pro Max," translated as "iPhone 17 Pro Max crew." The group, per the report, "specializes in high-volume thefts of mobile devices and personal valuables in crowded areas."

The man, who "resisted arrest violently," was charged with robbery and resisting arrest.

AirPods stolen during Hong Kong assault

An assault and theft incident in Hong Kong's Aberdeen neighborhood, which began with "an exchange of looks," resulted in the arrests of three people after AirPods were stolen.

Per The Standard, an 18-year-old man reported that he had been robbed by multiple individuals, resulting in the robbery of HK$5,000 in cash and AirPods.

The charges ranged from common assault to suspicion of common assault to theft. Those arrested did not know the victim.