Here’s a pro tip: If you have stolen a phone, make sure to log in to your own Instagram account before sharing any photos.
After a car crash victim had his phone stolen, he tracked down the culprit’s identity thanks to the thief’s girlfriend snapping a photo of herself and posting it to her Instagram account.
Patrick Lim Teng Yew, 20, was in a car accident last Tuesday when he ploughed into a barricade to avoid colliding with a motorcyclist in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. One of those who came to assist Lim and his friend took the phone, which was in a compartment by the car’s handbrake.
The thief passed the Galaxy Note phone to his girlfriend, who took photos of herself and uploaded them using Lim’s Instagram account. The photos therefore appeared on the victim’s Facebook profile.
A friend of Yew’s asked how he was still able to post photos using Instagram, even though he didn’t have his phone. After Yew’s friends helped him spread the photo online, an anonymous woman revealed the thief’s girlfriend’s identity, along with her Facebook account.
“From there I found out that her boyfriend was the thief. I recognised him as the person who offered to reverse my car,” Lim told New Straits Times.
Lim added that a phone dealer got in touch to say the phone had been sold to him for RM1,000 ($315). The dealer said the seller left without registering his details.
Photo via Facebook
