The police throw in prison thieves thanks to this iPad who spent 5 years at the bottom of a river

British police have managed to solve an international heist thanks to an iPad thrown into the Thames by criminals. The device contained a SIM card that allowed investigators to extract a call history that linked the suspects to the charges against them.

It all began in Switzerland in 2019, when criminals in Geneva managed to steal a rare Chinese vase from the Ming Dynasty – estimated to be worth 2 million pounds. The vase was recovered in 2021 and returned to the city's museum. Investigators managed to incriminate several suspects along the way.

However, the operation had an international component with an investigation in London, where the suspects, members of an organized crime group, attempted to resell the object to the highest bidder. This is where the story takes an interesting turn. Because in this case, the same group of criminals also found themselves linked to an attempted murder in an apartment and a burglary in a luxury villa.

The iPad was irrecoverable, but its SIM card proved to be a goldmine.

The investigation took a turn in November 2024 when the police received information that one of the suspects linked to the attempted murder had subsequently gotten out of a car on the banks of the Thames. This was enough to make investigators think that the latter might have gotten rid of his firearm in the area.

The investigators then ran a metal detector along the river. They found no weapons. But an iPad surfaced. It turns out to be extremely damaged, due to five years spent in the river mud. However, investigators find a goldmine: the SIM card connects the device to the suspects and to a series of disposable phone lines involved in the attempted murder.

The suspects, already accused of other charges, then find themselves linked to even more serious crimes, which should increase the sentences they face. The investigation is still ongoing in the United Kingdom. The judge in charge of the case is expected to pronounce the final sentence on the defendants at a hearing scheduled for April 25, 2025, in about a month.