Hapless iPhone Thief: Device had GPS Tracker

A thief called Horatio Toure thought his luck was in when he cycled up to a woman and snatched her iPhone and pedaled off. Trouble is the iPhone in question was running a program that was part of a company demonstration of real-time GPS.

A story by Demian Bulwa of SFGate.com is reporting that it took San Francisco police around ten minutes before Toure was apprehended only half a mile away. He was then booked into jail on suspicion of grand theft and possession of stolen property.

The phone’s owner David Kahn said “This reminds me of the bank robber who arrives during the security test.” The owner who is chief executive of Covia Labs of Mountain View was demonstrating a program called Alert & Respond when he asked an assistant – Jordan Sturm – to take his phone out so he could track her location on his laptop.

Seconds after the theft it seemed that Sturm was running down the street but on returning to the office and telling of the theft, the police were contacted who then had the thief’s whereabouts relayed to them. During this time if the thief looked at the phone’s screen, he would have seen himself traveling across San Francisco.