AirTag can’t be used to recover stolen item if thief has an iPhone?

The AirTag has an anti-stalking mechanism, so than when an unknown AirTag moves with your iPhone you will get a notification. This would mean that a thief who has an iPhone will get notified that the stolen item is being tracked. The thief then can locate the AirTag with their own iPhone and disable it. So for theft situations the AirTag seems to be pretty useless to me. Am I missing something? Is there a solution to this built in?