Can you really send yourself an AirTag to catch mail thieves? Maybe!
You may have heard the story about a woman who decided to tackle her recurring mail theft problem with an innovative, personalized solution: she sent herself an Apple AirTag in the mail, and once the package was stolen, she followed the thieves to their hideout. This is no urban legend. It happened this month and involved a Santa Barbara County, California, woman who had packages stolen from her mailbox. The scheme led to the arrest of two suspects, who allegedly robbed more than a dozen people.
If you’re struggling with mail theft (or bike theft, etc.), then a lightbulb might have just gone off in your head. But while we love high-tech solutions to our problems, there’s a lot more going on here than just “Send yourself an AirTag and catch your thief.” If you’re going to invest in this tracking strategy to catch a porch pirate or similar offender, there are a lot of elements that all work together. Let’s go through them.
Buying an AirTag (which you probably won’t get back)
AirTags aren’t the most expensive trackers out there, but they’re still an investment. You can find a pack of four for around $100. However, if you really want to have one stolen by a parcel thief, the chances of getting it back are slim. Even if the package is successfully traced, the AirTag will likely be collected as evidence and could easily be lost in the legal system. So there is some upfront cost (in addition to shipping).
AirTags aren’t super expensive, but they are quite an investment.
Sending your AirTag and hoping for luck
You’ve got a fully charged AirTag, you’ve got a package that’s temptingly heavy enough to attract thieves, and you’ve paid the shipping to get that package to your mailbox or porch. Now you’re in luck, and that can take time.
There is no guarantee that your package will be stolen right away. You may have to wait for days before anything happens. If thieves are no longer targeting your area, it may not work at all. In some cases, you may have to send packages through the mail more than once. In other words, this strategy requires some patience.
Trust in more populated areas
AirTags send information about their precise location by pinging Bluetooth signals from all compatible devices nearby — that is, any active iPhones or iPads nearby. If there are no active, cellular Apple devices nearby, an AirTag won’t work as well.
So if the thieves are Android fans and don’t live near other people, you might not be able to track their destination at all. In the case above, the trick worked because the suspects lived in a house in the densely populated city of Santa Maria, California, with enough Apple devices to make triangulation easy. That wouldn’t work for thieves living farther away. A more expensive GPS tracker might get the job done, but that’s a bigger investment.
Document everything carefully if you want to convince the police during your investigation plan.
Contact the police and have them listen
Here’s another tricky part: The Santa Barbara County case only worked because the woman contacted the local sheriff, explained how she had tracked the package, and provided all the necessary information. The sheriff then took action. But that doesn’t always happen.
Not many police departments have a team specifically dedicated to mail theft, or the resources to send people out to scout a tracked location. They’re unlikely to listen to a lone victim who’s hatched a plan of his own. Most police departments have just one trick to stop package theft: patrol the area a few times. And you can find many stories on Reddit about police who do not take action about stolen mail.
So, a lot depends on what your local law enforcement contacts decide to do, and that is out of your control. The best thing you can do is to compile clear evidence (including photos and screenshots) of the package being created, shipped, and tracked, as well as evidence of other mail that you had stolen. We do not recommend visiting the thieves’ location yourself.
To track your package to the thief’s destination, you’ll need a lot of luck.
Hoping for a successful investigation
Finally, the location tracking needs to yield results, and that often requires lazy thieves. An active gang of thieves would quickly go through packages, seize any valuables, and throw the rest far away from where they live, including your AirTag. Or they would dump everything in bulk on a local black market before the police could discover their location. Again, luck must be on your side if you expect any arrests to be made.
So yes, you can certainly try sending yourself an AirTag to solve your theft problem, but it takes luck and work, plus a lot of cooperation from local law enforcement. Keep that in mind before you go licking your stamps.
For other tips on keeping your home safe, check out ways to deter burglars, how burglars choose a home in the first place, the best places to put security cameras, and the best ways to deter porch pirates.
