An Edinburgh student has shared how she was forced to track down a thief that stole her lost phone and tried to sell it.
Sophie Lam, 22, who is an interior design student at Heriot-Watt, lost her phone in the Meadows at around 9am on Thursday November 3. She tried to call the phone to see if anyone had picked it up but it was answered by a man who she claims was acting suspiciously.
She alleges that the man stupidly answered the phone and claimed to have left it on the bench at the park but he became squirrelly when pressed as to how he could have left the phone behind and be speaking to Sophie as she called.
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The man told Sophie he would leave it at a local Sainsbury store but something did not seem right and so the student used her Apple watch to track the man's movements. This led her following the culprit around Edinburgh in order to recover her iPhone 12.
Sophie also says that she was forced to take action with the help of friends after Police Scotland told her that there was nothing that they could do.
On the ordeal, she said: “So I dropped my phone in the Meadows and tried to phone it off of my friend’s phone after I got home in the hope that someone had picked it up or handed it in somewhere.
“A man picked up the phone and began to tell me that he had left my phone on the bench where he found it, this was despite the fact he had just answered my phone.
“So I said to him, are you sure? Because you’re answering from my phone right now, and he changed his tune to say he was going to hand it in at the Sainsbury’s local on Meadow Walkway.
“At this point I knew that he was lying because I’m tracking my phone from my Apple watch and it told me that he was walking towards West Port.
“I phoned the police on 101 and they asked me to give the IMIE number from my phone. But as I’m tracking the man, the police called me back to say they couldn’t help me.
“So I was forced to take matters into my own hands.”
Channelling the skills of a private detective, Sophie tracked the man from the city centre, to the Grassmarket, to Leith Walk, Niddrie, Southside and finally St James’ Quarter.
She managed to get CCTV footage of the man from a store on Leith Walk that showed the culprit trying to sell her phone.
She continued: “While the man was in Leith he entered a phone shop as I could see him do so on my watch and he tried to sell my phone there. I called them up and asked if anyone had come in and tried to sell an iPhone 12 with a local screen that was of a small fluffy white dog.
“They told me that he had been in the store but that he had just left shortly after 12.30pm. Since we knew he must have been in the area, my boyfriend jumped in an Uber and headed down to Leith.
“He followed the man to the Grassmarket but was unable to find him. My friends then offered to pick me up and drive me around until we managed to locate him.
“We went to Niddrie and then went back to the city centre. We were finally able to track him down outside of St James’ Quarter as he was headed to the bus station.
“He was having a smoke when I confronted him and I demanded my phone back, which he then handed over.”
A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: “Around 11.30am on Thursday, 3 November, 2022, police received a report of a mobile phone theft in the Meadows are of Edinburgh.
"All calls to Police Scotland are subject to assessment and prioritised accordingly. Enquiries into this matter remain ongoing.”
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