A pair of Apple AirPods have helped a woman track down her allegedly stolen car.
Faye Marie Luvillaranta’s car went missing from outside of her home in Berkeley, near Wollongong, on Wednesday night.
When she realised it was gone on Thursday morning, she thought someone had played a prank on her, but she soon realised she was a victim of an alleged car theft.
“I hurriedly like called [my friend] and said, ‘Where’s my car?’,” Luvillaranta said.
She began to panic, until a stroke of genius from her friend.
“Suddenly my other friend told me, ‘Do you have anything inside the car, like AirPods?'” Luvillaranta said.
Luvillaranta, who had indeed left her Airpods in the car, whipped out the Find My app on her phone and tracked her car to the Illawarra Sports Stadium, just down the road.
The pair jumped into her friend’s car and began the hunt to find the allegedly stolen vehicle but when they found it, it wasn’t empty.
Dashcam footage from inside Luvillaranta’s friend’s car showed the moment the pair pulled up and realised there were people inside the car.
They quickly called triple zero for help.
“The door’s open, I’m so scared,” the girls can be heard saying on the dash cam footage.
Soon after, police arrived and questioned the 26-year-old man and 17-year-old girl inside the car.
“Is this your car?” the officer can be heard asking.
“It’s my friend’s car,” a the owner’s friend replies.
The pair were arrested, with the 17-year-old released and the 26-year-old taken to hospital.
Police believe Luvillaranta found her car moments after it was rammed into an 18-year-old P-plater’s vehicle.
The P-plater’s father Gred Simpson said the car is now a complete write-off.
“The car just went straight through going in the opposite direction… it didn’t stop and cleaned him up, smashed the front of the car,” Simpson said.
The car has now been returned to its rightful owner.
The 26-year-old has not yet been charged, but police say that will soon change.
