A small Apple tracker has helped many travelers with their misplaced luggage and is now helping police arrest an airport worker.
The tracker developed by Apple, called AirTag (but which also has similar competitors from other brands), works via Bluetooth.
If you’re near a device with active Bluetooth, which was very common in the days when headphones were no longer wired and smartwatches dominated wrists, the device will share its location, which will be sent to the user.
With that and low battery (the same battery found in basic wristwatches that lasts more than a year), these trackers are perfect for those who travel, especially in recent times of European chaos where the lack of staff has produced many losses of luggage.
And that’s exactly what an American traveler did when he left his hometown for Fort Walton on Florida’s west coast in the Gulf of Mexico region. When he arrived at his destination, he noticed that some things were missing from his suitcase. In all, $1,600 (R$8,282) worth of merchandise disappeared, including the AirTag pointing to a house in the town of Mary Esther, next to Fort Walton.
The disappearance reported above was registered last month, but on the 9th of this month, another traveler claimed that $15,000 (R$77,700) in jewelry was missing from her suitcase, and police concluded that something Something strange happened at the airport.
Using the AirTag location data, the Okaloosa County Police Department compiled a list of employees at DestinFort Walton Beach Airport (which shares a runway with the major U.S. Air Force Base Eglin) and saw who lived in Mary Esther on the plaza the device showed , according to NBC News.
The list contained only the name of one employee: Giovanni De Luca, 19, who was an outsourced worker for a handling company responsible for loading and unloading aircraft luggage.
Police went to his home and found all the belongings in the woman’s suitcase, including all the jewelry. Giovanni admitted to the crimes but said he got rid of the first traveler’s AirTag and stolen goods last month.
He was arrested on two counts (Grand Theft), each carrying between 5 and 30 years in prison plus a fine. It was not disclosed which airlines the young man worked for or whether they compensated the passengers for the losses.