“Six Apple store employees at the Galleria mall [in Fort Lauderdale, Florida] are accused of teaming up to defraud the store out of nearly 600 iPhones worth an estimated half-million dollars, police said Wednesday,” Wayne K. Roustan reports for The Sun Sentinel. “Detectives began investigating the thefts this year when a regional loss-prevention manager for Apple notified Fort Lauderdale police about the group of employees.”
“Since April, thieves who posed as customers at the store handed stolen iPhones to employees in the ring and exchanged them for new iPhones, police said. Each Apple employee in the ring was paid between $45 and $75 for carrying out a fraudulent transaction, police said,” Roustan reports. “A seventh person, Best Buy Mobile employee Sean Flynn, 25, of Davie, provided serial numbers from cellphones at Best Buy Mobile. Part of the scheme hinged on Apple employees using that information to assign cellphone serial numbers to the new iPhones at the Apple store, police said.”
Roustan reports, “In addition to Persad and Flynn, Daniel Michael Scotti, 44, and Adam Alvarez, 24, both of Fort Lauderdale, Anthony Joseph Tranchida, 22, of Plantation, Sadia A. Dandia, 28, of Southwest Ranches, and Otis Jerrell Ferguson, 37, of Miramar, have been arrested… All are facing charges of obtaining property over $50,000 by fraud, grand theft and organized dealing in stolen property, jail records showed.”
More info and video in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Here’s a video link from yesterday
http://touch.sun-sentinel.com/#section/-1/video/p2p-81081486/
Boiling oil.
If that had happened in a Microsoft store Satya would notice it right away .
Not right away. Not even Nutella goes to those stores.
And would have just been thankful to have moved some Windows Phone inventory!!
600 iPhones * $75/transaction isn’t going to pay for much attorney time.
Diversity would include some thieves?
Yes we have plenty of it down here in Florida. The bad kind though. 911 high jackers included.
I was thinking the same – what a motley crew.
Diversity! America has finally arrived!
Here’s some diversity of crime for you here in my neighborhood:
– Neighbor Mike sold drugs out of the window of his apartment. He was later arrested for robbing a local bank. He’s white.
– Neighbor Anthony was caught in a county-wide sting operation that nabbed a ring of heroin traffickers. He’s black.
Crime comes in all colors and stripes. Welcome to HUMANITY, sad to say.
It looks a little muddy around here. Welcome to Merica.
See you in 30 years fools:
First (1st) Degree Grand Theft
If the stolen property is valued at $100,000 or more, then the defendant will be charged with 1st Degree Grand Theft, which is a 1st Degree Felony. First degree felonies have a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and fines of up to $10,000.
Genius bar? Looks more like a fool bar.
Had to be a trini (Trinidad and Tobago national) to mastermind the fraud.
C’mon you people in the picture. Smile!!
Old Mr. Cranky doesn’t like your mug shot with all those pouty faces.
What a bunch of LOSERs!!
Hope APPLE throws the damn book at them and then some!!
…hosted big dinners to recruit fellow Apple store employees, bragging about the new 2014 Lexus he bought and the home loan he paid off
Classic crook coercion. So why were these employees so desperate as to join in this fencing racket? This is the kind of crap drug addicts pull.
Hey! Let’s not skip important facts! The employees AND the iPhones were charged!
Tar and feather them!
And once they’re out of prison, let them use Symbian phones only.