Apple AirTag Helps Catch Florida Airport Suitcase Thief

Apple’s AirTags are designed to stop you losing your stuff, but it turns out they are really useful for catching thieves, too.

As ABC7 reports(Opens in a new window), police in Florida managed to track down a thief who had been stealing from suitcases at Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport thanks to an AirTag.

A passenger dropped one of the tracking devices into her suitcase (alongside personal items worth $1,600) before flying out of the airport last month, but the suitcase never arrived at her destination. A quick check of her Find My app showed the AirTag was located roughly 11 miles away from the airport, which is information she duly passed on to local police in Florida.

It’s unclear why the police didn’t track down the thief then and there, but a few weeks later a second passenger reported jewelry and other items worth $15,000 were missing from his suitcase after passing through the same airport.

At this point, the police cross-referenced the location the AirTag had reported with the home addresses of airport workers. Sure enough they got a match, and a 19-year-old airline subcontractor named Giovanni De Luca was arrested after some of the stolen items were found at his home. It seems as though De Luca didn’t understand how the AirTag worked as he admitted taking and keeping the tracker. Unfortunately, that first victim’s personal belongings haven’t been recovered yet.

AirTags aren’t always used for good, though. There have been reports of AirTag stalking, which led to Apple boosting the volume of AirTag alerts, adding anti-stalking AirTag features to iOS, and working with law enforcement to track down users who use them for spying.