Thieves betrayed by stolen MacBook

BEIJING, May 12 (Xinhuanet) -- A stolen MacBook with built-in camera is being credited with helping police to arrest two suspects in the burglary of an apartment in New York, according media reports Monday.

The thieves broke into an apartment and made off with flat-screen TVs, iPods, and DVDs, and most importantly with two laptop computers, which proved to be their undoing.

One of the laptops belongs to Kait Duplaga, who works at the Apple store. Few days after the break-in, Duplaga's friend saw the computer was online and informed her. By using the Back to My Mac program, the victims remotely controlled the laptop and snapped one of the alleged thieves before he realized. The photographs were then handed over to the police and culprits were soon to be identified and arrested.

"It's certainly a great use of what was probably meant as a business product," Daniel Jackson, the deputy commissioner of public safety in White Plains said, "But if she had taken the picture and didn't know who he was, we wouldn't be in the same place as far as the investigation goes."

(Agencies)