An Apple AirTag has led to the arrest of an airline worker accused of stealing $15,000 worth of items from luggage.
AirTags have become indispensable travel gadgets, especially during this year’s post-pandemic travel chaos.
The handy gadget has proved useful yet again as it helped police track down the missing luggage of a traveller from an airport in Florida.
Thankfully, she had placed an AirTag inside her luggage which showed that it was 80 km east of Pensacola, Florida.
The location helped the police in investigating another theft this month, where a traveller had more than $15,000 worth of jewellery and other items stolen from his luggage.
The authorities cross referenced the AirTag’s location with the address of airport employees and were led to the home of 19-year old Giovanni De Luca, an airline worker.
De Luca was charged with two counts of grand theft after authorities recovered the stolen jewellery from his home, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release last week.
While he admitted to rummaging through someone’s luggage and removing an Apple AirTag, the woman’s luggage has not been found.
A shortage of staff following the mass redundancies that engulfed the aviation industry during the pandemic has left airports in Europe and the US struggling to serve the surge of passengers and their luggage.
Many customers have taken to calling out the airlines on Twitter with the exact location of their bags that have seemingly been lost, thanks to their AirTags.
So, it’s a good idea to use AirTags to keep track of you luggage and has so far proved useful to many.
Apple introduced AirTags in 2021 to keep track of people’s belongings and has since been criticised for being used to stalk people.
In January, Apple published an AirTag ‘Personal Safety User Guide’ amid stalking fears.
The tracking devices, which use short-range Bluetooth, are permissible on planes and can help reunite you with your lost luggage. The tiny, coin-like devices act as trackers for keeping tabs on things like keys, wallets and backpacks.
They cost £29 each or £99 for a pack of four – so they’re not too expensive to buy.
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