French burglar used ChatGPT to locate Canberra home with luxury goods

A French burglar used ChatGPT to turn social media photographs into a map to a Canberra home, court documents say. The images showed luxury goods, a cherry blossom tree and a backyard with a swimming pool and tennis court.

The documents state that Ilyes Abdelkader used artificial intelligence to determine that the cherry blossom tree was commonly found in Canberra. Another image showed Black Mountain Tower, providing a further clue to the location. He then used ChatGPT to search for Canberra suburbs with tennis courts and pools and identified the house.

Abdelkader and three other French nationals, Mohamed Abdelkader, Mohamed Naimi and Antoni Voisin, flew from Thailand to Sydney on October 7. Several days later, while the residents were away, the group allegedly broke into the Canberra property. They used tree trunks to smash a window and reached a safe the victims believed was locked.

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The prosecution cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that these [unreturned] items were genuine.

The group later used a freight service to send some of the belongings to France. Police arrested all four men at a KFC in Wentworthville, Sydney, on October 19. They have remained in custody since then. Some designer handbags were recovered from a short-term rental property in Wentworthville, while other items were located by French authorities.

The case also involves a major dispute over the value and authenticity of the stolen property. Prosecutors told the ACT Supreme Court that the agreed value had fallen from A$10 million to just under A$2 million. The prosecution said it could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that some missing items, including a Richard Mille RM88 Smiley watch claimed to be worth A$5 million, were genuine because the victims had not produced receipts, purchase records or certificates. The court is expected to set a sentencing date next week.

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The victims have not been able to produce any documentation such as receipts, proof of purchase, transaction records, or certificates to prove the authenticity of those items.