The hum of a smartphone, not a police siren, set Mia Forbes Pirie and her husband Mark Simpson on the trail of their missing Jaguar E-Pace. Just after 3 a.m. on June 3, thieves hauled the £46,000 SUV from outside the couple’s Brook Green home in west London. Fortunately, the car carried a hidden Apple AirTag that pinged its exact location a few miles away in Chiswick.
When the pair called the Metropolitan Police with that live location, they say the response was little more than “we might send a patrol.” With no guarantee officers would act soon, they decided to go themselves. “I wanted to act quite quickly as my fear was that we would find the AirTag and not the car,” Forbes Pirie told the BBC.
Arriving on a quiet residential street, the couple found the Jaguar, its carpets ripped out as thieves tried, and failed, to bypass a ghost immobiliser they had installed after a previous theft. After verifying ownership with Jaguar’s remote-assist team, they unlocked the doors and “stole” their own vehicle back before police reached the scene.
The police confirmed officers later met the victims on 10 June and said the investigation is ongoing, but the force’s wider record on car crime has drawn criticism. Official figures show 33,530 vehicle-theft offences in London last year, yet only 326 led to a charge or caution—a success rate under 1 percent
Safety experts warn that AirTags are not designed as anti-theft devices and advise victims never to confront criminals directly. Even so, this case joins a growing list in which Apple’s $29 tracker has reunited owners with stolen property faster than stretched police resources could manage.