By Sean Webby
Contra Costa Times
When an Apple employee got to his downtown San Jose home to find his two iPads had been stolen, he realized the hot-selling tablet could help him track down the thieves.
With a San Jose police officer looking over his shoulder, the employee used his iPhone to watch an icon representing one of his iPads traveling throughout the city, then turned onto Cape George Place.
Police then swung into action, surrounding a 1998 Dodge Neon. In the backseat was a slew of hardware including the employee’s iPads. They arrested Francisco Chavez, 31, and Arturo Urrutia, 33, both of San Jose, on burglary and other related charges.
“It was really amazing,’' said the 31-year-old, who did not wish to be identified as a victim of crime.
Police spokesman Ronnie Lopez said it was a prime example of how police and the public were using modern technological tools to fight crime. Long used in such automobile GPS tracking services such as LoJack, the GPS tracking technology is increasingly becoming more common for personal and corporate technological devices such as laptops and phones.
Although it sounds like an Apple commercial, the true technology crime story went down Monday afternoon when a security company called the Apple employee at work to tell him someone may have broken into his home.
When he got home almost an hour after the theft, the man found the crooks had grabbed about $20,000 in computer equipment and other electronics including two iPads, an iBook, three laptops and an old PC.
He quickly recalled that he could track his iPads using the “MobileMe’’ “Find my iPad” app which through GPS technology can track misplaced or stolen devices. He had once used the same app to find an iPhone that had fallen between the cushions of his sofa.
The Apple employee, a manager with the Cupertino company, called police.
“The officers were all for it, they were really excited about it,’' the man said.
Standing on his front lawn, the man watched as the apparent burglars drove away through the city - represented as an icon of his iPad coursing along the illustrated San Jose streets of his phone screen Google map.
A police officer watched over his shoulder and radioed in the location.
“He’s heading north, he just made a left,’' the officers told the dispatcher.
They could not track the thieves by exact car, so officers waited until the icon moved into a cul de sac in the residential area to make their move.
There, on Cape George Place, officers made the car stop.
By the end of the day, officers had returned all of the stolen equipment, identified by serial numbers to the manager. Other computer equipment found in the car was not his, police said. They are investigating whether the suspects, one of whom was a contractor who had recently remodeled the manager’s home, may be involved with additional thefts.
Copyright 2010 Contra Costa Newspapers