It may be a little harsh to put him on the shortlist for Ireland’s dumbest criminal – but one not-so-tech-savvy thief who snatched an iPad has been left red-faced after pictures he took with it were uploaded to his victim’s iCloud.
Ray James, a 65-year-old who lives near Bath in England, was holidaying in Dublin in October when the incident occurred.
“I had a sort of travel bag and I went to take a camera out of it in order to take some pictures of friends who were with us,” he said today. “I dropped the camera and I’ve never dropped a camera in my life.
“I picked it up and carried on. About an hour later I realised that my iPad was missing. I started doing all sorts of things, ringing around everywhere I’d been but it was nowhere to be seen.”
Mr James said he believes the iPad was stolen while he was distracted by dropping his camera. He reported the matter to gardaí who gave him a report for insurance purposes.
He also said he had the ‘Find my iPhone’ app installed, which operates as a tracker for devices that are lost or stolen.
“When I got home the next evening and went to check it, I was told the iPad was located at an address at a place called Old Cabra Road, Dublin. I got back on to the police and passed on the information but I didn’t hear anything after.”
Mr James’ son lives in Singapore and recently bought his father a new iPad.
“So I got back on to my iCloud and got set up,” said Mr James. “All of a sudden, amongst my photographs, were pictures that were taken after it was stolen, of people I have never even seen. I couldn’t believe it. I was just thinking ‘who is this guy?’
“In these pictures, there are also pictures of an iPhone and some jewellery and a handbag. There are also pictures of this guy. What I’m assuming is that whenever this guy takes a picture it sends it up to my iCloud, so I’ve now got these pictures.
“There’s another one of him lying on his back and taking pictures of himself. There’s one of him where he is posing nicely in front of the camera. It’s a classic picture – you couldn’t take a better one yourself.”
He said he reported this new information to gardaí on Friday but has yet to hear back from them.
“They said they hadn’t assigned a detective yet to this case,” he said “I haven’t heard anything since. I have these pictures and I know where the thing is, and they don’t seem interested.”
