Authorities in Vermont are warning residents to check for hidden AirTags after traveling to Canada. According to law enforcement, there have been multiple cases of people in the northeast finding hidden AirTags on the car after road tripping it to Canada, a scheme that is believed to play a role in criminals eventually stealing those cars.
A report from WCAX details the story of Ethan Yang, a Massachusetts resident who frequently travels to Montreal and back to visit family. On a recent trip back from Montreal, Apple’s Find My safety features kicked in and alerted him that AirTag had been found moving with him.
“When I was on my way back, I was about to cross the border, my phone alerted me that there was a tracking device. By the time I realized it, I confirmed it with my phone that was able to make the AirTag beep,” Yang explained. After using the Find My app to make the AirTag play a sound, Yang located it in the front grill of his car.
According to Burlington, Vermont police, this isn’t the first time this has happened. They’ve received a spike in reports of people finding AirTags in their cars after traveling to Canada. It all boils down to criminals using AirTags to track the location of the cars before eventually stealing them:
“They could be identifying vehicles that could be stolen and shipped abroad as part of a car theft ring,” said Ryan McLiverty a cyber analyst with the Vermont Intelligence Center. He says these incidents have been going on for a while but they’re noticing a new spike, where criminals in Montreal use the technology to track cars, steal them, and sell them.
“Criminals are increasingly using technology to target individuals and sometimes just knowing the basic security features of those devices can go a long way,” he said.
In these cases, it seems like Apple’s AirTag safety features have worked as they should. The Find My app will alert you to an unrecognized AirTag traveling with you. You can make it play a sound via the Find My app, and it will also play a sound on its own after it has been separated from its owner at a random time within an interval of eight hours and 24 hours.
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