Pickpocket slips Singaporean’s car key in Paris, guess where his car is?, Singapore News

Traveling is all fun and games until someone sneaks up behind you and steals your belongings.

A Singaporean, who goes by the username Eclair_travels on TikTok, experienced it firsthand while vacationing in Paris, a city notorious for pickpockets.

However, he ended up being luckier than most victims.

In a TikTok video uploaded on Thursday (September 1), he shared how the car keys belonging to his Lexus were stolen as he took a photo of a building in the City of Love.

@eclair_travels

Saved me a thousand plus dollars and days of servicing time. Apple I luv you <3. #Paris #France #travel #pickpocket #miracle #apple #airtag

♬ original sound – Eclair Adventures – Eclair Adventures

Eclair_travels only realized that his backpack had been unzipped and the keys gone missing after about nine minutes, taken by a fairly expert pickpocket.

Making full use of the AirTag, a tracking device that was attached to his keys, he was able to track his location.

To his surprise, he discovered that his “keys [were] on the move” as he tracked the pickpocket’s movements via his phone.

“[The pickpocket] was probably beeping everywhere to find and steal my car,” he theorized.

However, here’s the plot twist – this TikToker’s car was safely parked in Singapore, not France.

He got lucky

Hoping to get help, he went to a nearby police station, but unfortunately it was closed that day.

In the comment thread, he also told a netizen that he approached police officers patrolling the streets, but said they “pretended not to understand what [he] said”.

Eclair_travels said he also searched the entire Tuileries garden for his keys, suspecting they had been thrown down a drain, but to no avail.

He was about to give up but after taking a break for tea at the Hotel Le Meurice, he makes one last attempt to find his keys and manages to locate them at the bottom of a nearby trash can along with the using the AirTag.

In its video, Eclair_travels said it suspected the thief couldn’t find the car and threw away the keys.

“Saved over a thousand dollars for replacement and three to four days of maintenance and matching,” he gratefully wrote in the captions, referring to the cost of replacing those car keys.

So why did he bring his car keys overseas with him, one netizen asked.

Eclair_travels explained that he simply forgot to remove it from his backpack before flying to Paris.

Others said he was ‘lucky’ the pickpocket didn’t remove the AirTag from the car keys while another netizen said Eclair_travels shouldn’t be surprised to get pickpocketing because “it’s Paris”.

other

Another Internet user advised Eclair_travels to always carry his bag in front of him.

other

Unfortunately, not all robbery victims are as lucky as him.

Just a few days ago, nightclub DJ and influencer Peggy Heng shared that she and her husband’s Airbnb villa had been robbed in Ibiza and that among the items stolen from them were two new Rolex watches that cost a total of $42,000.

While the couple managed to track down the burglars with the AirTags in their luggage, they were unfortunately unable to retrieve the valuables.

In a separate incident last year, a mother and daughter traveling in Italy had $15,000 worth of new designer items stolen from their tour bus.

They shared that despite having travel insurance, it was not enough to claim the true amount of money they had lost.

READ ALSO: Protect yourself from scams and pickpockets abroad – travel guide

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