When Long Beach, California resident, Philip Obondo, realized his BMW had been stolen.

I walk out of my house and there's no car, and I'm just flabbergasted.

He decided to take matters into his own hands. Here it is. With the help of this, an Apple Air tag he had hidden in the car for exactly this situation. Dashcam recovered from the stolen car, capturing the overnight adventure the thief took through Long Beach, appearing to smoke inside the car before, evidently, falling asleep until dawn. He even picks someone else up. You know I'm parked somewhere? And he stops at a car wash. But while the thief was on a joyride, Obando and his wife were getting to work. They say they called police and were following the BMW using the AirTags GPS, finding out it had not gotten far.

My wife said, There's the car, and the person is gassing the car, feeling it. She said, Get out of the car and go get it.

Video from Obando's wife's dash cam shows Obando running toward the gas station and confronting that suspect.

I said, Hey, this is my car. The guy replied with like, No, this is my car. I said, Really? I had an extra fob, clicked it, car beeped. That's when the guy said, Oh, man. He just fled.

Even though Obando says the suspect had knives in the car, he got it back without issue. But security experts warn against using that tactic.

People will sometimes take the law into their own hands. The suspect might be armed. He may have a knife, he may have a gun on him.

Some police departments, though, are encouraging the use of air tags in a responsible way.

This simple device, this simple air tag, hidden in a car.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD encouraging residents to use the tags for tracking. We have a lot of tracking. But to let police physically track down the suspects.

I have one in my car, and I like to think that if anything were to happen, I'd use it to aid the police. But that's a decision you have to make in real-time.

Back in California, Obando says the suspect didn't make a clean getaway, leaving behind drug paraphernalia and even a wallet that revealed he was their neighbor.

We looked up his address, and sadly, it's really not far from where we live, so that's scary.

Obando says he Turn that stuff over to investigators. The Long Beach Police Department telling NBC News no arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.

All right, Steven Romo joins us now. Steven, a lot there, a lot to unpack here. I do want to ask you, though, there's obviously a lot of good sides, but there are some downsides to this. You got to be careful, right?

Yeah, there are things experts do warn about. Mostly, they say it's great to find stolen stuff, but let police handle it. Don't just go and try to find the person on your own. There's actually a recent case out of San Antonio, Texas, where a man went to find his stolen truck, ended up shooting a person who was in that vehicle. And again, call police, let them sort it out. That's what the experts tell us. There are also privacy concerns. Partners might be able to track someone they suspect may be cheating, that thing you don't want to be tracked for. So it's something else to consider when trying to get these air tags. But there are a lot of success stories as well, Tom.

Yeah, might be smart to keep up in your car. All right, thanks so much, Steven.

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