With no help from the police, man recovers his $4,000 stolen laptop in the most unexpected way
Kainoki Kaede is licensed under CC BY 2.0
If you want something done, do it yourself.
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One California man managed to recover his expensive, stolen MacBook Pro after local law enforcement proved unhelpful. Matt Swartzen took matters into his own hands and used some clever tech to track down his property. He shared his whole ordeal on TikTok,
According to BroBible, Swartzen’s troubles began when he parked his car in Sacramento to attend a meeting. Unfortunately, when he returned, he found that someone had smashed a window and made off with a bunch of his stuff including an upgraded MacBook Pro valued at over $4,000, a pair of AirPods, some medication, and other personal items.
Luckily, because Swartzen is all-in on Apple products, he immediately turned to the Find My app. He saw that both his MacBook Pro and AirPods initially showed up at the same location. Later, the laptop popped up again at a mobile repair shop, and shortly after, it appeared to be at one of a few houses down the street. Armed with this crucial information, he called the police.
Swartzen decided to become his own private eye
The police advised him to wait at a coffee shop near the last known location, promising a sheriff would meet him there. Several hours went by before a sheriff finally arrived. After a brief search, the sheriff called Swartzen back, admitting that knocking on a few doors hadn’t turned up anything.
Swartzen decided to find his stolen items on his own. His first stop was the mobile phone repair store where his laptop had briefly pinged. The store told him someone had tried to sell a laptop earlier, but they couldn’t complete the sale because the seller didn’t know the password. Even though the business had security cameras, Swartzen was informed they “don’t record.”
Undeterred, Swartzen then headed to the last known location of his AirPods. To his surprise, he saw his headphones simply lying on the ground. He also found his medication nearby. He figured the thief just grabbed everything and then tossed the less valuable items. He then moved on to the last known location of the laptop – a dumping ground under a bridge.
After a quick search, he found his MacBook Pro. It was a bit dirty, but “completely usable” with the screen intact. Given how hard it was to access the dumping site, and the fact that the laptop wasn’t visibly damaged from being thrown, Swartzen speculates that the thieves might have wanted him to find it. He realized that Apple’s robust security features played a key role here.
Things like Activation Lock and password protection make it incredibly difficult to resell devices if you don’t know the original owner’s credentials. Unless a thief wants to spend a significant amount of time trying to crack the software, it’s often more efficient for them to just move on to the next easy target.
Swartzen’s ordeal went viral, sparking a lot of discussion online. Commenters had their own theories, with one speculating that the thieves “stashed it until they could find a buyer or figure out how to gain access.” Another suggested that the person at the computer store might have been a friend who tipped Swartzen off, and that the thief “put the computer somewhere slightly safe where he could leave it for a few days and see if you were tracking it.”
Many commenters also chimed in to express their frustration with the police’s response, with one person stating, “So basically the police didn’t do anything.”
Published: Mar 3, 2026 05:45 pm