In what can be referred to as the most awe-inspiring arrest with the help of technology, BMW has topped the class. Just last week, the German automaker not only managed to track an alleged thief but also trapped him within the car by locking it remotely, reports Seattle Police Department’s blog.
In a series of unfateful events for the suspected driver, the police reported that he was seen prowling around cars early morning on Sunday. As luck has it, he found an unlocked BMW 550i in a parking garage. But that’s not it. The keys to the car were mistakenly left by a friend of the owner – who’d gotten married a day earlier and had loaned the car to the said person.
Now, what would a suspect stealthily inspecting cars do, if he finds a key fob inside an unlocked BMW? Well, yes, he buckled up and took off with a beautiful piece of automotive technology.
But, luck wasn’t on his side on that particular day. The suspected thief decided to take a nap in the BMW’s driver seat and was woken up by the Seattle police, with a little help from the folks at the car manufacturer. Talking about the same, Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the SPD, says,
A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him.
Once the owner of the said BMW discovered that the car was missing from the location her friend parked it, the SPD was intimated and they made immediate contact with BMW’s corporate offices. The employees were able to “remotely lock the car’s doors, trapping the suspect inside” by using the SIM card-based ConnectedDrive system.
This system enables the owners of one of these expensive cars to ring a call center staff and ask them to remotely lock and unlock their vehicle when needed. This, however, came handy, in a rather different situation than one would expect. In addition, they decided to have some fun and scare the alleged thief by:
hissing something terrifying like “I’m not locked in here with you, you‘re locked in here with me” into the car’s sound system.
The 38-year old suspect, found sound asleep, was caught and charged with auto theft and drug possession as he was carrying a small amount of methamphetamine. This is one of the most impressive wins for technology.
