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British police officer uses Twitter to track down iPad owner in Thailand

Constable Ed Rogerson of the Harrogate, England, police recently reunited a lost iPad with its owner more than 6,000 miles away.

An iPad was turned in to the police department several months ago. No one claimed it. So Rogerson sorted through the photos on the iPad that were accessible without logging on to the device — one photo was of a plane ticket with a name clearly visible — and determined which images were of the owner. He then posted one of the photos on Twitter.

The image was retweeted more than 2,000 times.

Rogerson found an inactive Twitter account with the same name as the one printed on the plane ticket in the photo. He contacted a follower of the owner who then put Rogerson in contact with the iPad owner.

The owner, Jukjik from the Nakhon Ratchasima Province of Thailand, lives in Thailand and had been vacating in England when she lost the device.

"When I started to try and locate the owner of the iPad I had no idea that she'd be in Thailand, but thanks to the power of social media I was able to identify her, make contact with her and arrange to get the property returned," Rogerson told the Telegraph. "The response from the online community was amazing. Thank you to everybody on Twitter who assisted by re-tweeting and giving me tips on how to locate her."

"I was very, very pleased and very happy when I heard that my iPad had been found. I can't believe you managed to track me down just through Twitter," Jukjik said. "Now I can see all the photos I took when I was in England and have a nice reminder of my holiday. A big thank you to PC Rogerson and North Yorkshire Police."