Man uses Google Maps to nab thief, recover father's stolen bag and phone: 'I was lucky'

The stolen phone's location on Google Maps showed that it was being taken back to Nagercoil. (Right) The man held for the theft. (Image credit: @rajbhagatt/X)

A man in Tamil Nadu managed to recover his father's bag and phone which was stolen from a train using Google Maps to trace its location. Raj Bhagat, a civil engineer, said that because the phone's location was enabled, he could trace it using a different phone and eventually found the thief with the help of the local police.

"My father was travelling from Nagercoil to Trichy in sleeper class in Nagercoil-Kacheguda Express. He had boarded at 1.43 am from NCJ (Nagercoil Junction railway station)," Bhagat wrote on X. "The train was relatively empty and another person who boarded along with my dad stole my dad's bag and mobile phone from him and deboarded the train in Tirunelveli Junction."

When his father realised that his belongings were missing, he first searched the train and then called up Bhagat from a friend's phone at 3.51 am.

"Luckily, among immediate family members we have location sharing 'on' which meant I could track the location of mobile," Bhagat said. "When I checked it, I realised that the mobile was moving along the track near Melapalayam in Tirunelveli so I deduced that the thief was returning to Nagercoil in another train."

Determined to retrieve the phone and the bag, Bhagat and his friend Babi, who is also a local DMK functionary, went to Nagercoil station to catch the thief. They sought help from the railway police and an officer accompanied them.

I called my close friend Babin who is also a local DMK (@arivalayam) functionary to help me recover this. And we both went to Nagercoil station to catch the theif. The railway police listened to us and one of them came along. This is a snapshot of Google maps at the time when I… pic.twitter.com/zWJwVZNSxV

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— Raj Bhagat P #Mapper4Life (@rajbhagatt) February 4, 2024

But nabbing the thief was more difficult than the team had anticipated because the station was crowded but they continued to search for him, looking for anyone who was carrying a black bag with a CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions) logo; Bhagat's father was a member of the union. The thief managed to leave the station and according to the phone's location on Google Maps, he had taken a bus and was moving away.

"So we started our chase in bikes," Bhagat said.

After a couple of minutes, he noticed that according to Google Maps, the man was just two metres away. "At that point, I was standing behind him and I just checked what was written in the bag and it was written CITU with its logo. My dad is a union activist. My friend and I confronted the thief in the bus stand and with the help of other people in the bus stand we recovered my dad's phone and bag," the engineer wrote on X.

The man was then handed over to the police who managed to retrieve other stolen goods including a cell phone charger, Bluetooth earphones, train chains, Rs 1,000 in cash and others.

Commenting on the happy ending, Bhagat said that everyone was stunned after he recovered the stolen mobile within two hours. "I was lucky that the thief didn't turn off the phone through the entire thing, I was lucky that he had to pass through Nagercoil which was my backyard (nearby), and I was lucky that I knew something about maps and how to navigate it," he added.

Read more: Google Maps misleads Tamil Nadu man who drives car up to a flight of stairs. Watch