Pickpocket swipes Singaporean's car key in Paris, guess where his car is?

Travelling is all fun and games until someone sneaks up behind you and steals your personal belongings. 

One Singaporean, who goes by the username Eclair_travels on TikTok, experienced this firsthand while holidaying in Paris, a city notorious for its pickpockets.

However, he ended up luckier than most victims. 

In a TikTok video uploaded on Thursday (Sept 1), he shared how the car keys belonging to his Lexus got stolen while he was taking a photo of a building in the city of love. 

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@eclair_travels/video/7138260460872191233?_r=1&_t=8VJTzF86i4g&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=71382604608721912[/embed]

Eclair_travels only realised his backpack was unzipped and the keys were missing after some nine minutes, taken by quite an expert pickpocket. 

Making full use of the AirTag, a tracking device that was attached to his keys, he was able to track its location. 

To his surprise, he found that his "keys [were] on the move" as he tracked the pickpocket's movements via his phone. 

"[The pickpocket] was probably beeping everywhere to find and rob my car," he theorised.

However, here comes the plot twist — this TikToker's car was safely parked in Singapore, not in France. 

He got lucky

In hopes of getting some help, he went to a nearby police station but unfortunately, it was closed on that particular day. 

In the comments thread, he also told a netizen that he approached some policemen patrolling the streets but he said that they "pretended they didn't comprehend what [he] was saying". 

Eclair_travels said he also searched the entire Tuileries Garden for his keys, suspecting that it had been thrown into a drain, but to no avail. 

He was on the verge of giving up but after taking a break to enjoy some tea from hotel Le Meurice, he make a last-ditch attempt to find his keys and managed to locate them at the bottom of a rubbish bin nearby with the help of the AirTag.

In his video, Eclair_travels said that he suspected that the thief was unable to find the car and threw the keys away. 

"Saved me a thousand plus dollars to replace and three to four days of servicing and pairing," he wrote gratefully in the captions, referring to the cost of replacing those car keys. 

So, why did he bring his car keys overseas with him, one netizen asked.

Eclair_travels explained that he had simply forgotten to remove it from his backpack before flying to Paris. 

Others said it was "lucky" that the pickpocket had not removed the AirTag from the car keys while another netizen said that Eclair_travels shouldn't be surprised about getting pickpocketed as "it's Paris". 

Another netizen advised Eclair_travels to always carry his bag in front of him.  

Sadly, however, not all theft victims are as lucky as him. 

Just a few days ago, nightclub DJ and influencer Peggy Heng shared that she and her husband's Airbnb villa was burgled while in Ibiza and among the items stolen from them were two newly-purchased Rolex watches that cost a grand total of $42,000. 

While the couple had managed to track down the burglars with the AirTags in their luggage, they were, unfortunately, unable to retrieve the valuables.

In a separate incident last year, a mother and daughter travelling in Italy had $15,000 worth of new designer goods stolen from their tour bus. 

They shared that despite getting travel insurance, it was not enough to claim back the true amount of money they lost. 

ALSO READ: Protect yourself from scams and pickpockets overseas - travel guide

melissateo@asiaone.com