Apple's Find My App Helps Police Chase Fugitives During Fatal Chase

Police in Melbourne successfully chased two fugitives by tracking them using Apple’s FindMyiPhone app. A fatal chase occurred in February and both the fugitives were killed after the police used a stolen iPad to track them.

Vaataa Chang and Jonas Montealegre stole an iPad during a home invasion on Feb. 4, which allowed the police to track them using the Find My app, even though they tried to evade them by switching cars and going through multiple towns.

“Two men killed during a police chase in Melbourne's north were being tracked from the air via the 'Find My' app after an iPad was stolen in an earlier home invasion. Driver Vaatoa Chang, 29, from Sunshine West, and his Caroline Springs passenger Jonas Montealegre, 36, carried the iPad with them as they switched stolen cars in a two-hour attempt to flee police on February 4," the Sydney Morning Herald reported Tuesday.

The victim had interconnected Apple devices and helped the police track the stolen iPad using the FindMyiPhone app on his device. The police started following the location shown on the device and tracked the suspects to a local hotel. They were followed using both vehicles on-road and a helicopter from the police’s air wing in the chase that took around two hours.

While evading the police, the men drove their car into a freight truck and died in the accident.

This is not the first time that the Find My app has helped law enforcement. A couple of weeks back, Milwaukee police tracked a sex trafficker and a robber, who had broken into and stolen devices from an Apple store. The fact that the device could be live tracked helped the police narrow down the location of the fugitives and helped the police pursue them.