alt Hacker NewsThankfully you were in Switzerland rather than the states, I just never see American police caring about that.
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Switzerland is the Singapore of Europe (I mean this in a good way!) - the state just functions in a way that other European countries can only dream of
Depends on the jurisdiction.
One time I was driving down a twoo-lane road with a police car a few hundred feet behind me. An oncoming pickup truck veered several feet over the center line and almost hit me. I flagged the police down to tell them and they were nonplussed even though they literally saw it happen. Drunk driving, a greater threat than property theft, was of little consequence to them.
On the other side of the country my motorcycle got stolen and the police found it the next day. I picked it up from the tow yard shortly thereafter.
YMMV.
I was robbed at a gas station in Jersey City and the police retrieved the airtagged backpack in 20 minutes. The police was fantastic.
My car got broken into in Oakland, California. Multiple pieces of luggage stolen (yes, my fault for leaving it in the car in the first place). Luckily I had an AirTag that showed the exact location of the stolen items. I called the police but they said they couldn't do anything. Apparently, even if I had the location the thief would have to invite them in. Regardless, I was put on a waiting list, they finally called me back 3 days later. I promptly left the state a few months later.
Unrelated to airtags but last year a couple wheels were stolen off my brand new car. My city in California falls under county sheriff jurisdiction and they actually assigned a detective to the case.
Sadly even once he got the subpoena and other paperwork to track down the criminals through Facebook (they had listed my wheels two weeks later on Marketplace) he couldn't find them since they were using VPNs.
The police in Spain will also not care, in my experience. They acted completely helpless regardless of how much information I gave them.
My solution now is to travel very light.
My friend/colleague had her phone stolen while she was napping in the hospital room of her terminally ill husband. Fortunately it had MDM. Called Palo Alto PD, I sat with them and tracked it from the hotel and it was already in San Jose. They worked with SJPD live and walked them into the guy who happened to be in a parking garage peering into cars. Caught him with a backpack full of stolen phones.
The stereotype of US cops not caring isn't always true.
Unfortunate fact for the perp was the ill husband was a US Attorney and stealing his phone made it a big boy federal felony that was not looked kindly upon by the colleagues of a dying AUSA in the Northern District. I wonder if he's still in FCI Lompoc.