Man Allegedly Used Apple AirTag to Find and Kill Person Who Stole His Truck

Joe Price
·2 min read

A man in San Antonio, Texas is under investigation after he allegedly utilized his Apple AirTag to track down the person who stole his truck and kill him, The New York Post reports.

As confirmed by the San Antonio police department, the incident went down on Wednesday, March 29 after the man was able to track the thief down to a shopping center 20 miles from where the truck was stolen.

Officials first got reports of a stolen vehicle earlier in the day. “Our suspect today stole the white truck you see back there,” officer Nick Soliz told reporters. “They stole it. Little did they know, it was tagged with an Apple AirTag. … They tried to confront the suspect, who they saw in their vehicle… I don’t know if an argument happened, but we know during this time he believes that a firearm may have been pulled by the suspect.”

At the scene of the shooting, there were several bullet casings and two cars with windows that had been shot out. The suspect was shot and killed, but police are unsure if they had a gun or not. “If you are to get your vehicle stolen, I know that it is frustrating but please do not take matters into your own hands like this,” said Soliz. “It’s never safe as you can see by this incident.”

“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products," said an Apple spokesperson in a previously released statement regarding the use of AirTags for criminal purposes. "Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag. It’s why the Find My network is built with privacy in mind, uses end-to-end encryption, and why we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking. We hope this starts an industry trend for others to also provide these sorts of proactive warnings in their products."

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