'Why you never bring me along?' Ya Hui calls out thief who stole AirPods, tracks them to Australia

Ya Hui may be enjoying her freedom now, but apparently, so are her Apple AirPods. 

The 35-year-old actress took to Instagram (IG) Stories on Thursday (March 23) to lament the loss of her AirPods Pro while filming at Jewel Changi Airport.

In screengrabs captured by 8days, Ya Hui shared that through the Find My app tracker, the earpieces were last located at Changi Airport Terminal 3.

Believing that the device had been taken by someone who was heading overseas, she wrote: "To the person who didn't return the lost pouch, why you never bring me along? I would love to fly with you too."

After several hours, the expensive earpieces (a brand new set costs around $360, according to the Apple website) were eventually tracked to an address in Perth, Australia. 

Speaking to Shin Min Daily News on how the unfortunate episode occurred, she shared that she'd forgotten to put the pouch containing the AirPods back into her bag while getting styled during the shoot. 

"I discovered it was missing within one hour and the crew tried to help me find it but it couldn't be found," said Ya Hui. Thinking that the pouch had only some makeup in it, Ya Hui was prepared to forget about it.

At past 5pm that evening, however, Ya Hui received notification that her AirPods were at the airport. She had already knocked off work by that time.

"I was really frantic," said Ya Hui on feeling the pinch of the loss.

She had thought about going back to the airport to find the AirPods, but as the system had stopped updating, she knew that it meant the earpieces had likely "flown overseas".

True enough, she posted an update 12 hours later that her AirPods had landed in Australia.

"Wow! In Aussie now! I wonder where you are from...," she wrote.

Based on the postal code shown on the tracker, 'home', for the device at least, is now somewhere in suburban Perth.

Hopeful for its return

According to 8days, other posts on her IG revealed that the accessories bundled with her earpiece were all unopened, which likely meant they were newly bought.

[[nid:605036]]

However, Ya Hui told Shin Min Daily News that she hasn't lost hope that her AirPods could still find its way back to her hands one day.

"I really hope I can get them back. My friends shared with me a news article of how one woman who had her earpieces stolen managed to get them back," said Ya Hui, who has reported the case to the police.

This is not the first time that Ya Hui has lost something of value either.

She shared with Shin Min that she'd once misplaced a pair of branded kicks worth over $1,000.

"After filming, I forgot to bring back a pair of shoes my stylist had given me and it was gone," said Ya Hui. In the end, she had to compensate the brand for the lost pair of shoes.

candicecai@asiaone.com