When criminals use GPS to steal your cars: she calls for vigilance

By Laurent Lavoie

A Montreal woman is warning the public to beware of car thieves who plant GPS devices in vehicles to track them and make it easier to steal them later.

"Beyond car theft, it's insecure to be followed. It creates windows of opportunity that become obvious for any crime. It's definitely worrying," sums up Marika Dubé.

The 32-year-old woman recently made an astonishing discovery: an AirTag had been unknowingly lodged in the bodywork of her Toyota RAV4, a model prized by car thieves.

According to Jacques Lamontagne, Director of Investigations for Quebec and the Maritimes at Équité Association, she narrowly avoided a scheme that has become "slightly" more popular among criminals in recent years.

Currently, on more than 30 stolen and recovered vehicles per week, there are between one and two tracking devices not belonging to the original owner," says Lamontagne.

Harmless

In Marika Dubé's case, in early November she began receiving curious notifications on her cell phone, which detected a device on the move.

At first, she thought it was an Apple earbud she'd recently misplaced.

"I kind of ignored it, thinking it was harmless, only to realize that it didn't say AirPod, but AirTag," she recounts in an interview with Le Journal.

But neither she nor her partner has such a tool. As she checked, Dubé realized that someone could be watching her every move.

"When we [she and her partner] started doing the math, it must have been two weeks, two and a half weeks, that we were being observed, that we were being followed," adds Dubé, who plans to file a formal complaint with the Montreal police.

A visit to the garage was necessary to locate and remove the AirTag using a magnet, and finally deactivate it.

Raising awareness

Marika Dubé was keen to share her experience to raise awareness, as she could have had her vehicle stolen despite her ease with technology.

According to his hypothesis, the person responsible could have been foiled by the fact that the car keys were often 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 a matter of being vigilant [...] and not taking it lightly," stresses the thirty-year-old.

Jacques Lamontagne also suggests using specialized applications such as AirFinder, which can detect any GPS signal.