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Women Track Purse Thief Using iPhone App, Police Say

 Two women found their stolen purses using the Find my iPhone app, police said.
Two women found their stolen purses using the Find my iPhone app, police said.
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DNAinfo/Nigel Chiwaya

MEATPACKING DISTRICT — Two women tracked a thief who swiped their purses from the restaurant Bagatelle using the Find My iPhone app, police said.

The women were eating at the 1 Little West 12th St. restaurant at about 3:14 p.m. on July 17 and left their purses — a $250 Rebecca Minkoff bag and a $15 H&M pocketbook — on the floor, police said.

When they noticed the bags were gone, they used the Find My iPhone app on a friend's cellphone to track one of their own phones inside one of the missing purses, police said.

Police said they followed the app to 10th Avenue and 28th Street, where they saw a woman rifling through their bags.

They called the police and officers from the 10th Precinct arrested the woman.

The 23-year-old woman was charged with six counts of felony grand larceny in the fourth degree, because of the five credit cards and one debit card in both purses, and one count of petit larceny.

The bags also contained two sets of house keys, a $900 iPhone 6 Plus, a $150 wallet, $50 lip gloss, a $20 Zara shirt, $30 Sephora lipstick and $10 sunglasses, police said. The total haul was valued at $1,425.

The woman was released after her arraignment without bail and is due back in court on Sept. 27.

Her defense attorney did not immediately respond to a voicemail left for comment and a Bagatelle manager declined to comment.