ROUND ROCK, Texas — UPDATE: As of May 29, 2024, Mitchell Wasek, the son of Buc-ee's co-founder Don Wasek, has been formally charged after allegedly using spy cameras to record people at his family's lake house.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Technology is making it easy for cameras to be anywhere, including in everyday items.
An example of this reared its ugly head, as the son of a co-founder of the famed Buc-ee's gas stations is accused of recording people without their consent at his family's home on Lake Travis and two other properties. A 2023 arrest affidavit stated Mitchell Wasek faced 28 felony charges after he allegedly recorded people undressing in bedrooms and bathrooms at homes in Spicewood, Dallas and Telluride, Colorado. In May 2024, he was formally charged with 21 counts of invasive recording.
"You're looking for USB chargers, you're looking for clocks, you're looking for phone charging devices. You've got them in air purifiers, you've got them in WiFi routers," Spy Shop Round Rock owner Jamie Martin said.
Martin is alerting people to be on the lookout if something seems out of place.
RELATED: Son of Buc-ee's co-founder formally charged with more than 20 counts of invasive visual recording
"What you're looking for is more than likely a clock, maybe a plug-in, an alarm clock-looking device, maybe plugged into the kitchen or behind a TV or somewhere behind a living room where you would normally not put an alarm clock ... The USB devices, they can be put in kitchens, bathrooms, they can be put anywhere," Martin said.
One thing to consider is buying a camera detector, which can be pointed at an object that may be suspected to have a camera. If it does, a red light will shine back.
If a hidden camera is discovered, Martin said police should be contacted immediately and the camera shouldn't be touched. It is best to let investigators unplug and handle it because anyone who touches it can be implicated.
"We get customers that come in here and go, 'How can you sleep at night when you sell this kind of stuff, knowing that people are using it this way or that way?' And my advice or what I usually tell them is, 'We're going to explain to you what you can and can't do with these devices. We don't want you using them illegally,'" Martin said.