50 days, 20,000 kilometers
Owner tracks his stolen SUV using Airtag – to the other end of the world
If the stolen car turns up again, that’s actually good news. For a Canadian SUV owner, the experience was rather frustrating. He was able to locate his car several times. And had to watch helplessly as he ended up on the other side of the globe.
The idea quickly becomes apparent: insert a tracking chip like an Airtag Packing your car not only helps if you forget your parking space – but also if the car is stolen. A Canadian has now experienced how little use this can be in practice. He always knew where his stolen SUV was. But he still couldn’t do anything.
The fact that the car was stolen in the first place was pretty bad luck, says Andrew, who only goes by his first name, to the Canadian broadcaster “CBC”. When he returned from a trip to his hometown of Toronto, he noticed signs of a theft attempt on the GMC Yukon parked in the driveway. “Not again,” he thought – another car of the same model had already been stolen from the same driveway last spring. He and his wife therefore considered blocking the driveway with the other car later. But by the time they had eaten a quick bite and tried to put their plan into action, it was too late: the Yukon had already disappeared.
Desperate hunt for the car
It was the beginning of a desperate search. On the day of the theft, Andrew watched over and over again for hours as the two air tags hidden in the car informed him of the current location of his SUV. He first drove around the city, then left for the surrounding area. During this time, Andrew tried to keep the police involved informed about the location.
Then there was a glimmer of hope: When the car was located in a freight terminal of the CPKC freight network, a police officer contacted Andrews to take a closer look at the situation. Using the Airtag data, he drove up to a container – and the second Airtag promptly responded. Apple’s tracking chips do not use their own GPS connection, but rather connect to any nearby iPhones in order to pass their location to Apple’s servers unnoticed by the smartphone owners. The second Airtag ping was probably sent by the police officer’s iPhone.
Short hope
However, this didn’t help Andrews: to his chagrin, the officer informed him that the container was on company property – and that he had no authority to search it. When the freight service provider’s security company responded to the request the next day, it was already too late: the container had been loaded. “That was the height of frustration. Knowing that he’s standing there. And that he’s going to disappear,” Andrew told CBC.
For the stolen car, it was just the beginning of a true odyssey. Andrew received further pings from Smith Falls, 350 kilometers away, then from Montreal. The next signal came weeks later – from Antwerp, Belgium. Three weeks later, the SUV arrived at its last destination so far: the Airtag reported from the other end of the world, from the United Arab Emirates.
Stolen cars as an export hit
In fact, shipping stolen vehicles around the world has long since become the norm. While Eastern Europe was long considered the main destination for cars stolen in Germany, the Near and Middle East and Central Asia have long since overtaken neighboring countries, as statistics from the Federal Criminal Police Office show. Many stolen vehicles also end up in Africa.
After a brief slump at the beginning of the pandemic, vehicle thefts in Germany reached a new high in 2022; compared to the previous year, they had increased by almost a third, to almost 40,000 stolen cars. After all, despite the record number of “lost cars,” the number of cars that actually disappeared without a trace has fallen compared to the pre-pandemic years. According to statistics, almost two thirds of the cars are found again; in 2019 it was only half.
According to the ADAC, luxury cars such as SUVs and limousines are most often stolen.
Difficult return
For Andrews, the hunt had only just begun. His father, a retired lawyer, began exploring legal options to get the stolen car back. A private detective hired on site actually found what he was looking for. One ad offered a GMC Yukon made “to Canadian specifications” and the odometer reading was the same as Andrew’s car. And sure enough, the identification number visible through the windshield matched the car stolen in Toronto. So Andrew’s SUV was put up for sale in the Emirates for $80,000.
However, attempts to persuade local authorities to cooperate have so far been unsuccessful. According to the person who was robbed, Interpol has not yet been able to offer any help. At least the car doesn’t seem to have been sold yet: according to the Airtags, it is still parked at the Arab dealer.