Don’t Steal Computer From People Who Know How To Use Computers – Part Deux

Don’t Steal Computer From People Who Know How To Use Computers – Part Deux

Back in March we brought you the story of Mark Bao, the serial entrepreneur who tracked his laptop thief and released humiliating videos of the culprit doing the rubber band dance on Youtube.
Last night a live drama played out on Twitter, as Sean Power, a tech author and consultant, used the free software program, Prey, to track his stolen laptop, which had disappeared,  along with a birth certificate, health card, cell phone and cash, from a New York City bar while he was in town on business

Despite checking every bar he'd been at, he couldn't find the laptop bag. They all insisted nobody had seen it, he says.
From back home in Canada, Power remembered he had the software, and two days later says he watched remotely as the "thief" took a photo and uploaded it to Flickr.
That helped Power figure out his name and location: Oficina Latina, on Prince St., in Nolita. It was one of the bars he'd visited.
Twitter followers watching Powers tweet about the drama soon figured out the culprit was actually a part-owner in the establishment.

Power says he tried to sic the NYPD on the owner, who identified himself to the press as Paolo Voltano, but he says they refused to respond without his filing an official report — which he couldn't do from Ontario. Several online watchers offered to help, but Power begged them not to.
"Please please please don't get directly involved. I don't want any of you to get hurt for a stupid laptop."

Reached for comment, Voltano insists the misplacement was a communication error among the bar staff. "When he called we didn't know the bag had a laptop in it," he said. "It wasn't a laptop bag, it was a big bag, like one you have a lot of stuff inside."
"It was a mis-communication. We didn't know we had it, and until someone comes to claim it, we don't know."
He began using the computer for personal purposes, he said, only after the bag had been there "a week and nobody claimed it. I thought it was karma," he said, mentioning his own computer and cell phone had been stolen three weeks before at the restaurant.
In the meantime, a Twitter follower was staking out the bar, and the story had broken on several blogs, although Voltano was still blissfully unaware.

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