Mother of three ‘steals her own car back’ by using her LAPTOP as a tracker – after thieves pinched it while she was at a wedding
A mother from Chigwell, Essex, recovered her stolen car within minutes by using her laptop, left in the boot, as an improvised tracking device. Vivi Kala's Kia Sportage was taken by thieves while she and her husband attended a wedding, but she used Apple's Find My app to locate the vehicle via her MacBook Pro, which had been left inside despite being switched off, allowing her to retrieve it before the theft could disrupt a family holiday planned for the following day.
Kala, 38, parked outside the Prince Regent Hotel on 20 August and discovered the car missing four hours later, along with her children's toys and laptop. After calling police, she checked the Find My app, which uses Apple's anonymised device network to locate lost items, and found the MacBook still showing a location elsewhere in Chigwell. She and an Uber driver rushed to the spot and found the Kia undamaged, though the thieves had already swapped its number plates for fake ones bearing a genuine Kia dealership's name, suggesting a professional operation aimed at evading automatic number plate recognition.
- Woman tracked stolen car using laptop left in the boot
- Apple's Find My app pinpointed the vehicle nearby in Chigwell
- Thieves had already fitted fake, dealership-branded number plates
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Mother-of-three Vivi Kala, 38, from Chigwell, Essex, had her Kia Sportage stolen from outside a hotel while she was attending a wedding with her husband. Rather than waiting for police to recover it, she used the Find My app on her iPhone to track down her own MacBook Pro, which had been left inside the car, and this led her straight to the vehicle.
Find My is Apple's built-in tracking service, which normally helps people locate lost phones, laptops or tablets using a network of nearby Apple devices. It is not designed as a car tracker, but because the laptop happened to be in the boot, it effectively turned into one, allowing Kala to pinpoint the Kia's location even though the thieves had already swapped its number plates.
The case has drawn attention partly because car theft in the UK has become increasingly organised, with criminals using tactics such as fake number plates to dodge automatic recognition cameras, and partly because it highlights how everyday personal technology can end up doing the job of dedicated security equipment.