Police were able to find a stolen Ferrari thanks to the owner’s AirPods, which were left in the car. Image Credit: Waterbury Police Department.
Police in Waterbury, Connecticut, were able to find a stolen Ferrari worth over half a million dollars, all thanks to a pair of Apple AirPods left behind by the vehicle’s owner.
On September 16, the Waterbury Police Department (WPD) was notified about a stolen Ferrari 812 GTS, stolen from the city of Greenwich, Connecticut, and valued at approximately $575,000. The WPD’s Auto Theft Task Force located the vehicle with the help of the owner’s Apple AirPods, which were in the car when it was stolen.
Apple’s $129 wireless earbuds support tracking through the Find My app, which is how police were able to locate the stolen Italian supercar. AirPods can broadcast their location to an iPhone whenever it is nearby.
As reported by WFSB, the stolen vehicle was found near a gas station on South Main Street in Waterbury, Connecticut. When police attempted to pull the vehicle over, the suspect escaped but left his iPhone in the stolen Ferrari.
Police were able to use the iPhone in the vehicle to identify the driver, Dion Schontten, aged 22, a repeat offender. On September 26, he was found driving a stolen Acura and was brought into police custody.
While stolen or lost property is typically found through the use of AirTags, it was two different Apple products that proved useful in this case — a pair of AirPods and an iPhone. If the owner of the Ferrari hadn’t forgotten their AirPods, and if the suspect hadn’t left his iPhone behind, police may not have resolved the situation nearly as quickly.
