London Couple Use an AirTag to Steal Their Car Back After Cops Wouldn’t Budge
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Thanks to an AirTag hidden inside, a London couple acted on their own to recover their nearly $60,000 luxury vehicle after police wouldn’t lift a finger to retrieve it — despite being provided with the exact location of the car.
It was a case of bad luck-good luck-bad luck for the couple, as while the thieves were able to get away with their purloined Jaguar E-Pace, it was parked only nine minutes away. However, as reported by BBC News, the London Metropolitan Police would not come out to that location to investigate.
It all started when Mia Forbes Pirie and husband Mark Simpson of Hammersmith, woke up on a seemingly normal morning to discover that their $57,000 Jaguar was not where they had left it.
“I went to use the car that morning, walking up and down the street and I was unable to find it, with my husband saying he hadn’t moved it,” Ms Forbes Pirie said.
“I thought it was weird, we both thought it was unlikely it was stolen because it had two immobilisers and so I was quite shocked and my stomach dropped.”
As one does, the couple immediately called the police. However, they say the police offered a “vague” response at best. When they told the coppers that the car had an AirTag hidden in it and that the couple had tracked the vehicle to its exact location, police did not act to recover the vehicle. So, the couple decided to use the AirTag tracker, which was located in Chiswick and notified police that they had decided to retrieve it themselves. The police wished them luck.
“I think I thought the police would act quicker considering they had a location for it, but I know they also very stretched,” concluded Forbes Pirie.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that the couple had indeed informed officers of their intentions, and they were advised to contact police again if they required assistance at the scene!
“I wanted to act quite quickly as my fear was that we would find the AirTag and not the car when it was discarded on to the street without the car,” said Forbes Pirie, “so I told them that we were planning to head to the location.”
“It felt like a bit of an adventure, it was exciting, a little bit of a fun thing to do, to see if we could find our car,” continued Forbes Pirie. “I didn’t really think car thieves would hurt us, more that they would try to get away.”
While people are strongly discouraged from tracking down and recovering their car from bad guys, this couple wanted their car back. So, the dynamic duo went in search of their car, using the Find My app on their iPhone. Once they arrived, the thieves were (luckily) nowhere to be found.
It seems that while the bad actors that stole the Jaguar were able to disable the immobilizer that came as standard equipment, they were unable to disable a second immobilizer that the couple had a third-party company install for good measure. Thieves abandoned the vehicle once the second immobilizer refused to cooperate.
Once they found their Jag, the couple were able to contact the immobilizing firm and prove ownership, start the vehicle, and drive it home.
AirTags have become a popular way for Apple users to track items that may be lost or stolen, including motor vehicles. For safety reasons, Apple, iDrop News, and law enforcement officials warn against folks attempting to recover stolen vehicles (or any stolen item, really) themselves and instead advise them to contact law enforcement. Here’s hoping your law enforcement will respond more positively than London Police did.
