The thief immediately begged for the video

This week, Budman got an e-mail from an Argentinian user whose laptop had been stolen. The Argentinian, who requested anonymity, had turned over the tracking information he got to the police, who raided the house. Inside, police found seven people, the stolen computer and a safe with 2,500 sheets of counterfeit sheets of money — four $100 bills on each, roughly equivalent to a million dollars.

According to Argentinian news reports, the police suspect the group weren’t the counterfeiters, but instead were the ones tasked with passing the bills. They arrested one and detained six others — but handed the computer back to its owner, who is asking to be anonymous for fear of retribution.

This wouldn’t be the first high-profile recovery of a computer using Backblaze’s service. In the internet-famous case of Mark Bao’s stolen Macbook, the thief made a video of himself dancing. Bao, who has a big following online, found the video using Backblaze and posted the video on YouTube, where to date it has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.

The thief immediately begged for the video to come down and turned himself in. The thief was arrested and prosecuted, and Bao got his laptop back.

Backblaze isn’t alone in tracking stolen electronics. Prey, an open source tool, offers users the ability to remotely wipe devices and take snapshots using built-in cameras. A wide range of other software tools, some free and some that cost, do the same thing.