Tired of being the victim of mail theft, a Santa Barbara County woman laid her own trap to catch those responsible for ripping her off. The unidentified woman kept a mailbox at the Los Alamos Post Office in the Santa Maria Valley and had been the victim of mail theft on multiple occasions. To stop the thieves once and for all, the woman decided to ship herself an Apple AirTag — a small, keychain-sized tracking device capable of providing the current GPS location to the owner’s mobile device — and waited for the thieves to take the bait. It wasn’t long before sheriff’s deputies were summoned to the Los Alamos Post Office to meet the woman, after her mail was stolen again……this time with the AirTag included. Now able to track the thieves, deputies traveled to Santa Maria where they located the suspects and the victim’s stolen mail — tracking device and all. Additional pieces of mail from dozens of other victims were also recovered, officials said. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office commended the victim for her “proactive solution” and thanked her for exercising caution by contacting law enforcement rather than confronting the thieves herself. The case remains under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and detectives are working to contact additional victims.
