Man Steals iPhone. Man Takes Photo. Man Emails Photo. Man Gets Busted.

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

One of my favorite quotes from the West Wing went something like "no amount of law enforcement money or manpower can equal a criminal being stupid". Today's case in point, via the New York Post, a man mugged a woman for her iPhone, used it to take a picture of himself, used her email on her iPhone to send his picture to his own email account:

"I checked my e-mail and saw something in my outbox," she wrote on the Japanese-language blog. "I knew I didn't send anything. "I opened the attachment, and there he was with his black and red knitted [Spider-Man] hat. The same hat I described to the police officers." She sent the photos off to cops who combed through mug shots and quickly zeroed in...

So there we have it. iPhone 1. Crime 0.

(And this is before Apple's rumored iPhone 3.0 "Find My iPhone" Feature!)

(Thanks to msproductions for the tip!)

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.