Four middle school students who broke into vehicles in an apartment parking garage were caught by police after the location tracking feature of stolen wireless earbuds gave them away.
According to JTBC's "Sageon Banjang" (Case Chief), which aired on January 5, a resident identified as Mr. A living in a Seoul apartment went down to the underground parking garage on January 1 for work and discovered a wireless earbud case near his vehicle. At first, he thought he had dropped it from his car, but became suspicious when he noticed his side mirrors were not folded and the interior of his car was in disarray.
Recalling that he had forgotten to lock his car door after retrieving items recently, Mr. A reviewed CCTV footage with building management staff. The video captured four individuals appearing to be middle school students entering the garage, splitting up, and opening multiple vehicle doors to steal items from inside. The group also broke into Mr. A's vehicle and fled with a luxury wallet and wireless earbuds.
Mr. A tracked their route through his wireless earbud location alerts, reported to police, and personally took a taxi to pursue them but lost the suspects. However, just as he was about to go to sleep that evening, he received a notification that the earbuds' location had been updated again. Mr. A and his wife took a taxi to the location, which stopped near a Korean BBQ restaurant.
When Mr. A looked through the restaurant window, he saw the middle schoolers eating meat. Holding his phone close to the wall, the wireless earbud location showed within a 1-meter radius, confirming they were the culprits. Mr. A asked his wife to call police and entered the restaurant to confront the students. One student sensed something was wrong and fled claiming to go to the bathroom. The others scattered immediately after paying their bill, but all four were apprehended by responding officers.
A restaurant employee said, "The kids were high-fiving staff and seemed excited from the moment they walked in," adding, "They even bragged to servers about having luxury watches and wallets."
Mr. A said, "The kids threw away the wireless earbuds while running, so I couldn't get them back. The investigation is still ongoing, so I haven't recovered my luxury wallet either, and it hasn't been confirmed whether the cards or gift certificates inside were used."
He added, "I heard there's another victim in the apartment parking garage. There must be victims elsewhere too." He emphasized, "They shouldn't receive lenient punishment just because they're young."
Police have booked the four middle school students on theft charges and are investigating whether they committed multiple thefts across Seoul.
