Laptop thief smiles for the camera
There’s an app for that. Just ask the thief in Ann Arbor, Mich., who went on Facebook with a stolen laptop — and a security app took his picture. Local police recognized the guy and arrested him, according to Ann Arbor.com.
The laptop was stolen during a weekend break-in. The owner, Logan Chadde, had installed anti-theft software that takes a picture of the user every time it’s turned on.
When the thief logged into a “Guest” account on the laptop, the software sent the picture to a security website. Then, Chadde got an email containing a picture of the man, a screenshot of what he was doing and the laptop’s location. The irony: The thief was using Facebook and talking with another person about how he was going to sell the stolen laptop.
“It was an amazing screen shot to get at a perfect moment with him chatting those things,” Chadde said. “I called the police and sent that to them, and I had his full name.”
Turns out, Ann Arbor police were familiar with the suspect. They had previously investigated the 19-year-old man.
“I kind of got the impression that this happens all the time,” Chadde said of the theft of his laptop. “But this is one of the few times the police had a lot of information to go off and hopefully help.”