NEW ZEALAND COMPUTERS STOLEN Sunday Star-Times - Sunday Star-Times

Exhibitionist thieves leave evidence on laptops (+ pics)

Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 20 July 2008

SHOWY THIEVES are unwittingly helping police by saving photos of themselves and details of their criminal activity on stolen computer laptops and cellphones.

After police recovered her laptop, one Auckland woman found hundreds of photos on it of the man she believes stole the computer, and his associates. The photos show him and friends posing with firearms, a P pipe, wads of cash and boxes of gold jewellery.

"I was just surprised that they would be silly enough to save that stuff there," says the woman, who asked not to be named.

Anecdotally, police are finding that exhibitionist thieves can't help themselves and are saving incriminating pictures to stolen cellphones, computers and iPods.

The photos can help police catch accomplices or may be used as evidence.

The Auckland woman was called to the police station last week after a serial number on a stolen laptop was traced to her.

Her laptop, those of her flatmates, and other possessions were taken when their Mt Albert home was burgled three months ago.

Police found the laptop while executing a search warrant at one of the offenders' homes. One man was charged for the burglary and another for receivingstolen goods.

The woman says she turned the laptop on at the police station to make sure it was hers.

She found files saved to the desktop that did not belong to her and opened them with the detective.

"There were a handful of photos one of a hand with a big blingy ring."

The detective asked her to sift through the information that was not hers and save it to a disk.

"In some of the photos, it looks like he's cooking up batches of some kind of drugs."

There were dozens of photos of the men posing with guns, bundles of New Zealand and American currency, designer goods and "a few girls who hang out with them".

The alleged thief's Facebook social networking page was saved on the computer. On it he says he graduated from Mt Eden prison "Da Rock" with a "degree in criminal activity". His friends include the likes of Paul Holmes's troubled daughter Millie.

"I feel like I know the guy really well," the woman laughs.

She also found "holiday snaps" and photos from a child's party, presumably from a stolen camera.

She hoped to get the disk back to police this week.

Detective Richard Trushell said the men pictured would probably face further charges "if we can find them". They had received bail.

Police do not generally turn on or check stolen computers without the owner's permission unless they need to find the owner or have a warrant. It is understood this is to protect the privacy of the victims.