A South African couple tracked their Apple AirTags to where their luggage had been stored after being stolen… little did they know that they would find an entire storeroom of stolen goods!
Western Cape, South Africa (24 August 2022) – Just two months after learning about Apple Airtags – by accidentally taking another passenger’s luggage from the airport – Jane and John found themselves victims of a crime but thankfully were able to solve it with the help of the little tracking device.
In June, the couple travelled to Seychelles and mistakingly took another passenger’s luggage (yes, it was mine), but luckily the Apple Airtags “saved the day,” and the story had a really happy ending.
This was the first time Jane and John had heard of the tracking devices, but they bought a few on arrival back in South Africa. Little did they know that just two months later, the tags would help them not only find their own stolen luggage but be part of solving a crime!
The couple had attended a wedding at a beautiful wine estate in Stellenbosch this past weekend. They woke up on Sunday, packed the car with all their luggage and went to breakfast before checking out.
“We came out approximately 30 minutes later to find ALL of our luggage stolen!! The boot and back seat were empty. The perpetrators must have used remote jamming when we ‘locked’ the hire car.”
They reported the theft to the wine farm manager so that she could alert the police and simultaneously activated their Apple AirTags – one in each suitcase – to track the stolen luggage.
Both tags were moving and showed that the robbers had a 29 minute start on them.
They asked the farm manager to organise police backup and decided to give chase as they saw the tags heading past Kuils Rivier and Mitchell’s Plain, stopping at an address in Delft! While they drove, the couple constantly sent the farm manager and local security manager screen grabs of the location of the tags so that they could inform the police of where they were heading.
“We were extremely stressed about following the perpetrators and unsure how we could confront the situation, but they took our everything, and we wanted it back!”
“We sent a live location to the wine farm manager whom we were in constant contact with, the farm owner and the local security manager, thinking that if we were stabbed or killed, at least they would find us!! This was not a ridiculous notion. The police afterwards were appalled that we had entered such a dangerous area, but we were motivated by the fact that we could lead them straight to our stolen goods and had a good chance of retrieving them.”
The couple parked 80m away from their tag location and waited for police back up.
A police van with two Delft police station constables eventually turned up, and the couple led them to the tag location. The houses were small and very close together, which made searching quite tricky – they could see the tags in the area but couldn’t locate the exact house they were in. After going door to door, they realised the signal was coming from a block of ten small apartments and entered that yard with the police.
A crowd had also now formed in the road as curiosity piqued, but they were all friendly and offered the couple and police advice.
After searching nine of the flats with the police, the couple who were personally on their knees looking under beds and inside showers were forced out of the flats by the agitated owner who had turned up. The police demanded that the tenth apartment be opened – the owner claimed not to have a key and said they needed a search warrant to get into that apartment.
Time was running out. Tensions were high. And both Jane and John knew that their belongings were in that tenth apartment. They also knew that if they left to open a docket to get a search warrant, their personal belongings would be gone forever.
The two constables felt the same and called for backup. Within minutes another police van turned up with two more police officers, including a very determined sergeant who convinced the owner to open the padlocked gate or he would forcibly do so!
“As we reentered the yard, our one Airtag showed that it was 5m away in the locked apartment; I spotted three wheelie bins and, on impulse, opened the lid of the first one, discovering both of our cut-off luggage covers inside! That was like discovering gold. We now knew that we were definitely in the right place.”
The sergeant demanded that the owner open the locked apartment – the owner still refused. Suddenly there was a commotion in the crowd. An accomplice was encouraging the residents to fight back and get the police and the couple off the property and out of their area.
“There was lots of screaming and shouting, but the police beat them off and shut them out of the metal gates. Back up was called for, and seven more policemen and women arrived to keep the crowd under control.”
A crowbar was used to open the security gate, and the police bashed the wooden door down.
Jane and John immediately saw their open suitcases and hand luggage with all their contents strewn across the room, but they also saw more bags, more hand luggage and more stolen goods. The room was filled with other people’s property. Backpacks, handbags, cellphones, wallets, binoculars… it was a veritable storeroom of stolen goods.
The owner was immediately handcuffed, and the couple were asked to identify their belongings.
“We found almost everything except the most important thing – my small pink bag of jewellery containing two heirloom rings from my late mum. We are insured, and I can replace the rest, but the craftsmanship of those two rings cannot be replicated, although I have photographs. I never usually travel with extra jewellery, but this was a black tie wedding, and I decided to wear my special items, which I placed inside a zipped compartment of my hand luggage bag, which I mostly kept with me. If we had parked outside a restaurant in the town or anywhere else, I would have taken the hand luggage bag inside with me, but we felt falsely secure on the wine farm premises, so I had taken only my wallet and phone inside with me and left my hand luggage in the car parked a few metres away, but behind a hedge.”
“The perpetrators had found out earlier from the crowd when we had been further down the road that we were following a tracking device, so when they hurriedly opened and searched our cases, they had found the one tag and removed that and the jewellery to another location. They, fortunately, didn’t find the second tag because that’s what led us to the correct room containing our luggage.”
“We had seen two men get into a white VW Polo that had been parked in the road outside the block of flats and drive off, returning a short while later. We now suspect they took my jewellery and tag to another location at that stage because when the police searched the car later, it was empty.”
The couple continued to update the police on the other missing tag, which was moving to new locations all day on Monday, but unfortunately, when they did go to the final address, they found another locked yard. The tag has now been at this same spot for 16 hours, so Jane and John believe it has either been destroyed or buried.
We offered a reward yesterday in the community to anyone who helped to find the jewellery. The sergeant, unfortunately, has had no success yet. Jane has even offered to buy her mum’s rings back if anyone finds them. If you do have any information, please get in touch with us by clicking here.
More than anything, the couple want people to know how incredible the Apple Tags are and to encourage any Apple phone users to invest in one.
“Brent, if it wasn’t for our experience with you, we wouldn’t have purchased AirTags and wouldn’t have any luggage in Cape Town! Without ours, we would never have found our luggage. It would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
**Names have been changed for privacy.
by 