A Southern California woman, fed up with having her packages stolen from her mailbox, sent an Apple AirTag to the address and cleverly tracked down the suspected thief, police said.
The woman had already had multiple items stolen from her mailbox at the Los Alamos post office when she came up with the idea, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday. Apple’s $29 AirTags have become popular items since their release in 2021, allowing users to track the location of everything from lost keys to wallets to luggage.
On Monday morning, sheriff’s deputies were called to the post office, where the woman told deputies that her mail had been stolen again, including the package containing the AirTag.
Police tracked the AirTag to a block in Santa Maria, about 16 miles from the post office, and arrested two suspects: a 27-year-old woman from Santa Maria and a 37-year-old man from Riverside.
They found the package with the AirTag in the victim’s mail, as well as items believed to have been stolen from more than a dozen other people. The woman refused to identify herself, the sheriff’s department said.
The two suspects were booked into jail on charges of possessing checks with intent to commit fraud, conspiracy, and identity and credit card theft. The 37-year-old was also booked on a burglary charge and several other theft warrants out of Riverside County.
The sheriff’s department commended the mail theft victim for contacting police so they could arrest the suspects instead of trying to contact them herself.
