A Montrealer warns the population against car thieves who hide GPS devices in vehicles in order to steal them. follow the trail and get hold of it more easily later.
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“Beyond car theft, it’s unsafe to be followed. This creates windows of opportunity that become evident regardless of the crime. It’s definitely worrying,” summarizes Marika Dubé.
The 32-year-old woman recently made a surprising discovery: an AirTag had been lodged without her knowledge in the body of her Toyota RAV4, a model popular with car thieves.
She found this AirTag earlier this month, which is as big as a coin.
Photo Laurent Lavoie
She would thus have narrowly foiled a ploy that was “slightly” more popular among criminals in recent years, according to Jacques Lamontagne, director of investigations for Quebec and the Maritimes at Équité Association.
Currently, out of more than thirty vehicles stolen and found per week, there are one or two tracking devices that do not belong to the original owner, indicates Mr. Lamontagne.
Anodyne
In the case of Marika Dubé, she started receiving curious notifications on her cell phone at the beginning of November, which detected a device while she was traveling.
She initially thought it was an Apple earphone that she had recently misplaced.
“I ignored it a bit, I thought it was harmless, only to finally realize that it wasn’t written AirPod, but AirTag,” she relates in an interview with The newspaper.
But neither she nor her partner has such a tool. During his checks, Mme Dubé understood that a person could watch her movements.
“When we [elle et son conjoint] started to do the math, it must have been two weeks, two and a half weeks, that we were being observed, that we were being followed,” adds Mme Dubé, who planned to file a formal complaint with the Montreal police.
A visit to the mechanic was necessary to locate and remove the AirTag using a magnet, and finally deactivate it.
It was in this portion of her vehicle that Montrealer Marika Dubé found an AirTag.
Photo Laurent Lavoie
Sensitization
Marika Dubé wanted to share her experience for awareness purposes, she who could have had her vehicle stolen despite her comfort with technology.
According to his hypothesis, the manager could have been foiled by the fact that the car keys were often found in a Faraday box.
This tool blocks the key signal and prevents the car from being unlocked and started without the owner’s knowledge.
“It’s just about being vigilant. […] and not to take it lightly,” underlines the thirty-year-old.
Jacques Lamontagne also suggests using specialized applications that allow detection of any GPS, such as AirFinder.
AND AT YOUR HOME ?
Is your municipality often the target of car thieves?
Find out on this map compiled by our Investigation Office, which allows you to locate down to the street, in certain cities, where thousands of vehicles have been stolen in Quebec since the start of the year.
Municipality (number of flights)
Number of flights to the same address
Methodology
This map of vehicle thefts in Quebec covers the year 2023, from January 1 to a date between June 30 and October 12, depending on the city.
The data comes from the Sûreté du Québec, the police service of the City of Montreal, the city of Laval, the city of Longueuil, the police service of the City of Gatineau, the police service of the city of Quebec , from the police service of the city of Lévis, from the police service of Sherbrooke, from the city of Blainville, from the police service of Châteauguay, from the police service from the city of Mascouche, from the city of Granby, from the city of Trois-Rivières, the police department of the city of Bromont, the police department of Lac des Deux-Montagnes, the police department of Memphrémagog, the police department of the city of Saint-Eustache, the police of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the city of Repentigny, the city of Mirabel, and Équité Association. Some were obtained through access to information.
Note that municipalities may have included vehicles such as motorcycles, trucks or boats in their balance sheet. As for location data, it was transmitted to us in different forms: postal code, street corner, street or neighborhood.
Data compilation: Nora T. Lamontagne and Philippe Langlois, Bureau of Investigation