This smartphone feature helped track a thief who stole 100 phones at Coachella

'Find My Phone' is one of the most overlooked feature available on many smartphones

US authorities were able to arrest a thief who stole over a 100 smartphones at the Coachella Valley music festival taking place in Indio, California using one of the most overlooked feature available on many smartphones.



Reinaldo De Jesus Henao, a resident of New York, was arrested on Friday after police recovered a backpack stuffed with smartphones he had stolen during the music festival.



Surprisingly, authorities were able to tracking Henao simply by using the ‘Find my phone’ feature on one of the stolen phones.

Reinaldo De Jesus Henao. PHOTO COURTESY: Indio Police Department

“I noticed some chatter on social media about phones disappearing on Reddit,” said Indio Police Sergeant Dan Marshall in an interview with Gizmodo. “One of the common threads [among Reddit posters] was that they were all losing their phones at the Sahara tent.”

Police then started to keep a close eye on the tent. However, the move didn’t work.

“In this case, the fans came through,” Sergeant Marshall told Gizmodo. “People started using the ‘Find My Phone’ feature on their phones and sure enough – people spotted a dot going through the tent, and they alerted authorities. [The police] took over from there after security had him detained.”

Photo: Indio Police Department

“Cellphones are lost by the hundreds at Coachella, and that has been the case for many years,” said Sergeant Marshall. The annual music event is a perfect place for someone who is looking to steal cellphones, where a large number of people take their phones out to snap photos of artistes and music. Plus the writhing mass of people at a concert makes it hard to keep track of belongings.



The “Find my phone” feature comes standard on some smartphones while others can also download similar apps third party developers. However, a large number of smartphone users remain oblivious to it.