A man in the UK used Google Earth to track down his car which was stolen from his home, Metro reported. Notably, thieves broke into 23-year-old engineer Jayy Robinson's house and took off with his two cars: Seat and a Volkswagen Golf.
After the police weren't of much help, Mr Robinson posted about the theft on social media. He said, "I was due to go to work at 6 am, went downstairs and both cars were gone, I was devastated,'' along with pictures of the cars. Jamie, a friend of Mr Robinson, saw the post and informed him that he saw a person trying to sell the Seat on a Snapchat story. He messaged the thief who demanded a 2,000 pound fee to return the vehicle.
Meamwhule, Jamie helped him do a reverse image search of the building the car was parked next to. They narrowed down the location after spotting the name of a housing estate on a wheelie bin in the photo. The duo then used Google Earth to identify the exact street where the vehicle was parked before informing the police.
Mr Robinson was then able to recover the Seat which was found ''parked up with no one around'' in West Bromwich, just six miles away from his home in Birmingham.
He said, ''I didn't know what to say when I saw it, I was amazed, I tried my keys and the car unlocked straight away so I knew it was mine. I didn't think they would be that stupid to leave the car in the same spot I at least thought it would be in a different place.''
Meamwhile, the Volkswagen Golf, worth 16,000 pound, has still yet to be found, and anyone with information has been asked to contact the police.
West Midlands Police said, ''We received a call just after 6.30 am on Friday (27 Oct) that two vehicles had been stolen overnight from Poole House Road, Great Barr. One of the vehicles has been recovered. Anyone with any information is asked to contact us via LiveChat on our website or call 101 quoting 20/936025/23.''
