Waze exposes a drug dealer who uses the app to get to his customers faster

Police in several states have already warned that listing the locations of speed traps on Waze could help speeders and criminals evade patrol cars.

A drug dealer in Aylesbury used Waze to drive to his customers, not knowing that the app stores the most up-to-date addresses. Eleftherios Kentoglou, 25, was spotted by police officers driving a Toyota in a public car park. As they approached the vehicle, they noticed something suspicious and decided to search it.

That was no longer necessary, because when they got the man out of the car, he immediately came clean. The drug dealer told the police where all the substances were and the officers found 10 bags on the driver's door.

While searching the vehicle, officers found a mobile device with the Waze app on the screen. The app contained several recent addresses where Kentoglou was alleged to have traveled, and at each of these addresses, police were aware of drug users.

The man was arrested and defence lawyer Iwona Boesche said the driver had come to the UK to work but got involved with people who persuaded him to sell drugs. He had not used Waze directly, she explained, but his bosses had relied on the app to configure all the destinations he had to drive to. For example, he had not set up Waze specifically for each address, but had just looked through his search history and selected the most recent addresses one by one.

No matter how he used Waze, the application got him into big trouble, as the man was sentenced to 25 months in prison and could be deported upon his release.

Police have already warned that Waze could be used by criminals to avoid checkpoints. The app's crowdsourced incident reporting system allows users to mark the locations of speed traps and police cars on the map, so anyone who wants to avoid all of these locations can use the app to find alternative routes.

For this reason, the authorities in France have banned Waze and other mobile navigation apps from displaying the locations of police traps on the road. All of these applications now mark so-called danger zones where drivers should expect to encounter speed traps, even though there are not always police cars in these zones. However, this is an efficient way to prevent mobile navigation apps from revealing the locations of police cars, not necessarily to catch speeders, but also to prevent cases where criminals resort to mobile software to evade police checks and checks.