Stolen Mac laptop leads victim to alleged thief
Posted by Dave Merten 
May 9, 2008 at 3:49pm
A tech-savvy White Plains, NY woman whose apartment was burglarized, solved the crime herself after she was able to log on to her stolen laptop and photograph the suspect with it.
A 23yo. Bonx, NY man was picked up at his home after the victim turned his pictures over to police. The police said they recovered most of the $5,000 worth of electronics stolen in the burglary. Among the items taken were two laptops, two flat-screen televisions, two iPods, gaming consoles, DVDs and computer games.
“Our victim did a phenomenal job,” said Lt. Eric Fischer, commander of the Detective Division. “She knew her computer, and she let us know as soon as she obtained the information. We rolled on it immediately, and the result is the arrest of two burglary suspects and the recovery of most of the stolen property.”
Police said, the victim, who works at The Apple Store in The Westchester mall, received a call from a friend asking her if she was online. The victim said no, and was told by the friend that his computer showed her as being logged onto the Internet. At that point, police said, the victim signed onto another computer and used the “Back to My Mac” program to determine that her stolen MacIntosh laptop indeed was signed onto the Web, and that someone was using it to shop online. She then activated the stolen computer’s camera, allowing her to “see” what was in front of the laptop.
At first, police said, she only saw an empty chair. But a short time later, they said, she was able to photograph a man sitting in front of her stolen laptop. The victim then was able to find a photo of the thief using the computer after it had been stolen, police said.
Fischer said the victim did not know the man but showed the photo to one of her roommates, who recognized him as having attended a get-together at the apartment a few weeks before the burglary.
The computer-savvy victim contacted police, gave them the tell-tale photos, and the arrests were made a short time later. The thief was charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, both felonies.
There are various theft-deterrent apps that you can install on your laptop to help recover it if it’s stolen. You can read about them in this article: “How to recover lost or stolen Apple products.”
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Dave Merten
Dave was one of the founding guides at ‘The Mining Company,’ now known as About.com, in February 1998. Dave was their ‘Focus on Mac Support’ guide. In 2004 he started ‘G5 Owners Support Group,’ and in 2005, renamed it ‘Mac Owners Support Group.’ In 2006, he started the ‘MacOSG Support Corner’ column here at Macsimum News.
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