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The DEA Used an AirTag for a Drug Bust. How? Why?

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An AirTag on a keychainThe AirTag is a handy tool. Apple’s Find My network, built into AirTags and AirPods as well as all iOS and macOS devices, can use a network of Apple devices to pinpoint their location. They use Bluetooth and the location-aware features of the devices around them to give you a precise location, even though the trackers don’t have GPS capabilities built-in. Plus, thanks to working with iOS devices, they don’t need a GPS signal or cellular network, just any nearby iOS device will do. In some ways, they can be better at tracking than far more sophisticated tracking devices.

The Find My network can help you find your devices when they’ve been lost and even when they’ve been stolen. However, even Apple doesn’t like that last part. AirTags can’t tell the difference between a thief with your purse and, say, a stalking victim with an AirTag in her purse without her knowledge. Apple has therefore built-in protections to alert users an AirTag is on their person that isn’t their own. Still, these aren’t perfect, and really only work well on iOS devices. Android devices won’t carry the Find My network, but someone with an Android device is likely around people with iOS devices, and therefore could still be tracked.

In a recent DEA report, the anti-drug task force used an AirTag hidden in some equipment to bust an illegal drug manufacturing ring. But why’d they use an AirTag, and, perhaps more worryingly to those afraid of AirTag stalking, how did it work?

The Drug Bust

Customs intercepted a pill press and some pill dyes they believed could be destined for an illegal drug manufacturing ring. They called in the DEA, who had an interesting idea. They’d let the pill press make its way to the destination, including its actual final destination, and track it. To do so, they disassembled the pill press and put an AirTag inside. Then they sent it on its way. The AirTag helped them pinpoint the location of the drug manufacturers, and the bust was made.

Why an AirTag?

The DEA report didn’t say why they used an AirTag. On one hand, it’s small, compact, and easy to hide inside machinery or a box. Because it only uses Bluetooth LE, it can slip past bug detectors that may be searching for radio frequencies outside the Bluetooth LE range, as everyone’s phones would set that off. Also, because AirTags don’t have their own GPS, relying on the mesh network created by iOS devices around them, they can be simple and small, slipping into tight places unnoticed. Unlike GPS, which can require clear line of sight to the sky, this signal only requires a nearby phone and an internet connection on that phone. In many ways, it’s the perfect spy tool.

On the other hand, it’s a consumer device. It features anti-tracking abilities that specifically warn people they have an unidentified AirTag on them if they have an iPhone. It also begins making sound if it’s away from its owner. This helps people who receive an alert about an unknown AirTag find the device and report it to Apple. Apple takes AirTag stalking seriously, and will likely ban the Apple ID of the person who set up the AirTag. Still, setting up an Apple ID isn’t very difficult, and use of an AirTag doesn’t require any form of real identification. Someone could easily use them for stalking, but not for very long anymore.

How Did it Even Work?

If Apple has all this anti-spying protection, how did the DEA’s plan even work? First, they did this in May of 2022. It wasn’t until December, 2022 that Apple added new advanced tracking protection that begins making sound on the AirTag more quickly. The DEA took advantage that AirTags weren’t as easy to find back then.

That’s not the only advantage the DEA had. They placed it inside a device. This means it was well-hidden. Even with an alert, the drug manufacturers wouldn’t have known where to look right away. Any sounds from inside the pill press could have been muffled as well. In fact, the DEA may have also used a version of an AirTag made for stalking and tracking lost goods, specifically: a silenced AirTag.

Silent AirTags?

It’s actually relatively easy to modify an AirTag to stay silent. The tiny speaker can be disabled with a sticker or even through permanent modification to the electronics. Removal or destruction of the speaker will keep it quiet. You can do the modification yourself or, for only a small premium, you can buy silenced AirTags from Etsy or other sites. These devices are supposedly for tracking lost goods, but the most common use for them is likely stalking. Because they are silent, they’re far more difficult to find, even if you receive an alert on your phone. And, because Android users can’t get an alert from Apple, they could potentially track some users for an extended period of time.

How can you protect yourself? If you’re on iOS, you can make sure you keep your devices updated so they always have the latest tracking protection. Always take a tracker alert seriously, they’re only triggered when away from the person who owns it, so it’s usually a legitimate tracking concern. On Android, you can download Apple’s Tracker Detect app to do scans. However, this only works for manual scans, so you’d have to do it quite often. There is a third party app, AirGuard, that is both open source and ran by the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. They’re doing research on people tracked with AirTags, and the app can run in the background, alerting you when you’re being tracked the way iOS devices can. However, you may not feel comfortable with a background app running. The app is open-source and has a privacy policy, as well as allows people to opt-out of any anonymized data collection, but, still many may be uncomfortable with the privacy implications.

Companies Need to Take Responsibility

Screenshots from Apple's Reacker Detect app and AirGuardIt’s absurd that I could find silenced AirTags on Etsy. These are tools that enable people to stalk others. Plenty of people have been able to get lost or stolen goods back with normal AirTags because they report the location and, for a stolen product, the police can get involved. These are most assuredly primarily for more nefarious purposes.

As for Apple, they need to make the Android version of their Tracker Detect app better. It should be able to do background scanning, just as all of Apple’s devices can. Android users shouldn’t need to fear tracking and feel hostage to Apple’s Find My network. Fear shouldn’t be a motivator for upgrading to an iPhone next time they buy a smartphone. Apple also needs to ensure they have people’s true identities on file when selling AirTags, so if someone is using them for stalking, police can get involved and make arrests easily. This comes down to requiring Apple IDs are tied to true identities if people are going to use AirTags. Apple surely won’t be willing to do this on their own, so legislation will likely be required to enforce that trackers like Apple’s AirTags and Tile’s trackers are registered and cannot be used for stalking without severe consequences. Stalking often ends in serious harm or death, it’s not something companies or legislators should take lightly.

The best thing you can do is use your trackers responsibly, stay alert, and check Tracker Detect or your iPhone’s alerts often. Keep everything up to date and remain vigilant. Someone has to.

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