Tony Aubéa friendly technology expert and tiktoker Canadian, was in Belgium in August. Everything seemed to be going well, until she made a huge mistake: taking a train. It’s not that getting on a train is a problem in itself (although the Gare du Midi in Brussels right now looks like a war zone and is testing the country’s political and social seams) or trying to get to the airport. The mistake, the immense and common mistake, is to assume that rapid public transport in the European capital is a safe space. He happened what had to happen: They stole his backpack with his computer and documentation and he was left stranded, enraged and frustrated.
So far, little story. If we had to count in the newspaper every time a clueless tourist’s belongings were stolen, each edition would look like the yellow pages. The interesting thing happened next, because Aubé was so pissed off, and had so much free time while he waited for his country’s embassy to open on Monday and to process a new passport, that he decided to devote all his resources, efforts and hatred to catching the thieves, who did not count on his audacity.
He tiktoker, who works in Silicon Valley, has told his epic story – and there is no more appropriate word – on his social networks and has become a legend in Belgium. He started with something that has happened to all of us or someone close to us: perfectly detecting where in the city the stolen belongings are. Let’s not fool ourselves, it is almost always in the same neighborhoods (and especially Molenbeek), the same people and with total impunity. His backpack had locators, but the thieves soon got rid of them. However, at dawn and by surprise, your computer gave signs of life, and Tony was able to locate it quite accurately. Hopeful, he called the police. But what happened to all of us or someone close to us happened and it has three phases so studied that it is surprising that it does not have its own name.
The first is adrenaline, when you think you are a spy and you can almost taste the metallic taste on your tongue moments before knocking down the criminals’ door while captaining a GEO team. The second is that of absolute desolation and helplessness, when the agents, of course, told him that ugh. That Sir yes yes, that we understand it perfectly, but that all this is very difficult. That the sign pointed to a neighborhood but it was impossible to know which house, flat or apartment. It’s almost better to resign. The third is when what your body asks of you is to go yourself, find the unfortunate people and make them pay. The usual thing is that you put it on WhatsApp and with friends or family you get upset, you imagine bravado, before accepting that they are the bad guys, but in reality you are not a hero. Most of us stood there, alone and without belongings, but Tony was living his life. day of fury and it was unstoppable.
His video explains that he went where the GPS indicated and He waited hours to recognize those he thought were the perpetrators.. With images and a lot of grace, he recreates how he also followed them throughout the city, until he realized that it was them, as they went to a computer store to sell objects. He called the police, who continued to make excuses. So he took his battle one step further, he returned to the initial location before being detected and waited in hiding for six hours until nightfall, when they returned. He was even one step away from taking out his drone to record them through the window. Now knowing exactly where his computer was, he tried one more time, and this time, miracle, The Police came and dismantled an important network of thieves, with hundreds of mobile phones, tablets and computers. Moral: be careful with trains and with freaks with time.