iPhone Thief Tracks Himself For Police With GPS

Nicole Martinelli ()

iPhone Thief Tracks Himself For Police With GPS

@The Brooklyn Paper / Bess Adler

Note to crooks: the grab-and-snatch iPhone tactic just got a little more risky now that GPS apps can tell police exactly where you are after you take it.

Horatio Toure, a 31-year-old crook in San Francisco, learned this the hard way.

He pedaled up on a bike, snatched a woman’s iPhone, then rode away. He didn’t know the victim was part of a company’s demonstration of a real-time GPS tracking program called Alert & Respond from Covia Labs,  SF Gate tells us.

Just 10 minutes later and only a half-mile from the scene of the crime, police nabbed him.  He was booked into jail on suspicion of grand theft and possession of stolen property.

Of course, this is great publicity for the new service, but as we reported Apple’s Find my iPhone program for MobileMe subscribers has also already tracked down another unlucky iPhone thief in much the same manner.

It’ll be interesting to see if these apps become widespread enough to deter thieves in quick-grab operations, which some police accounts say are on the rise.

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Via SF Gate

7 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

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Posted in iPhone, iPhone Apps, News |

  • Ramón

    Horatio? Somebody named their son Horatio?!?

  • http://ceebee.com Chris Bulow

    Cut down on such crime? Unless the thieves are completely brain-dead, the first thing they’ll do, once the “community” realises that this is happening, is to turn the phone off as soon as it’s taken. Then do a factory reset.

  • renegad3

    WOW, what a coincidence. Hundreds (if not thousands) of iPhone users all over SF, and this guy picks one that works for a company thats developing a tracking app!

    /me smells something fishy…..

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @Ramón

    YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @Chris Burlow

    The Find your iphone works via the phones IMEI number and serial number, which doesnt change no matter how many hard resets or factory restores you do

  • renegad3

    @Ben,

    While that maybe true, if you restore the phone, you no longer have the ability to track or wipe it remotely. Once its restored (which I believe Chris Burlow meant) the mobilme settings no longer are on the phone, so it cannot be tracked.

    The above is probably the most important reason you should set a lock code if you value FMI.

  • dajagreen

    Please stop insulting use with this fake ass news. “Horatio Toure” You can at least use a real name and by the way whoever did not know the iphone had a GPS tracking device needs to stop drinking the water immediately.