(CNN) 鈥� A California woman whose mail was recently stolen used technology as bait to track down the thieves, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff鈥檚 Office says.
Authorities in Los Alamos arrested two suspects on Monday with the help of an Apple AirTag locator device the woman had mailed to herself, the sheriff鈥檚 office said
Deputies responded that morning to a report of a mail theft that had just happened at the local post office. When they arrived, they learned the woman recently had mail stolen, so she decided to send herself a package with the tracking device inside, according to the release.
She became a repeat mail theft victim on Monday 鈥� but this time, she was able to track the thieves thanks to the AirTag, authorities said.
The devices work by sending out a Bluetooth signal that nearby devices in Apple鈥檚 Find My network can detect, according to Apple. The AirTag sends its location to a user鈥檚 iCloud, allowing them to see where it is on the Find My map.
鈥淚t is important to note that the victim did not attempt to contact the suspects on her own,鈥� the sheriff鈥檚 office said in the release.
The suspected thieves were located in nearby Santa Maria, California, with the victim鈥檚 mail 鈥� including the package containing the AirTag 鈥� and other items authorities believe were stolen from more than a dozen victims, according to the sheriff鈥檚 office.
Virginia Franchessca Lara, 27, and Donald Ashton Terry, 37, were arrested in connection with the crime, authorities said.
Lara was booked on felonies including possession of checks with intent to commit fraud, fictitious checks, identity theft, credit card theft and conspiracy, and remains held on a $50,000 bail as of Thursday, jail records show.
Terry faces felony charges including burglary, possession of checks with intent to commit fraud, credit card theft, identity theft and conspiracy and was held on a $460,000 bail, according to jail records.
CNN has reached out to lawyers representing Lara and Terry for comment.
In the release, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff鈥檚 Office also commended the AirTag鈥檚 owner 鈥渇or her proactive solution鈥� to track down the thieves.
Authorities said they鈥檙e working on contacting other victims of theft in this case.
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