“San Francisco Police Department has released footage of two recent Apple store robberies in the Bay Area, which took place on November 25 and November 29 (respectively) in the vicinity of Chestnut Street in San Francisco,” Mix writes for TNW.
“The first video captures three perpetrators daringly walk in, grab whatever they can and swiftly storm out – and all of that in the window of less than 15 seconds. Similarly, the second clip catches four men perform the same maneuver with almost identical pace,” Mix writes. “In both cases, startled staff and customers merely watch the criminals make off with a bunch of gadgets in their hands.”
“Earlier in June, New York Police department reported that ballsy bandits have been dressing up as Apple employees to surreptitiously jack iPhones from its stores,” Mix writes. “In October, iPhone thieves in Natick swiped $13,000 worth of goods from another Apple store based in Massachusetts.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And all of the products they grabbed have been bricked by Apple, rendering them inoperative.
As usual, these criminals are stupid. Efficient e-waste generators? Yes. Criminal geniuses? No.
As we wrote back in October, “So, this’ll be great as soon as thieves understand that there’s no point in stealing devices from Apple retail locations. Until then, expect a bit more e-waste in trash bins around Apple locations.”
SEE ALSO:
Why Apple retail locations can remove security tethers from their demo devices – October 17, 2016
Apple retail locations removing security tethers from iPhone display units – October 14, 2016
It’s all good, they are Democrats, so no problem at all…..
San Francisco is a Sanctuary City.
Its municipal leaders harbor fugitives in defiance of established Federal immigration law, I have zero compassion for crime in those cities. AG Sessions will remove their leaders just like RFK did George Wallace at the University of Alabama door.
Again with this crap.
My thoughts are, if they are the same guys, they are getting something for the thefts or they wouldn’t come back.
It would have been nice to see that guy outside, put his foot against the door jam and prevent them from getting out. He almost had it, but gave up too soon, unless they brandished a gun, which then it was a good idea he let them go.
Fine, go work at Apple retail, jam the door and risk your life for a MacBook Pro, Superman.
Could someone please call a plumber? The Breitbart site is leaking into MDN again. Gross.
Eugene, how many cities have BANKS that are robbed? Did you know that most of those banks were robbed by immigrants? Almost no Native Americans rob banks and the rest of you are just a bunch of scummy immigrants, right? Your bigotry is as large as the country you live in. Stop hating and look at the real problems: ignorance, bigotry, nationalism, racism, intolerance, hate, fear, Republicans.
Anyone, and I do mean anyone, who advocates the harboring of known criminals does not merit the dignity of being an American citizen.
PS: You make me vomit.
Don’t be so thick Eugene, you are an immigrant or the son of an immigrant. Somehow, you fear anyone who came to the Divided States of America AFTER YOUR FAMILY ARRIVED.
Botvinnik is not a native American name you immigrant. People who immigrate are not in the country illegally. Does your family have papers to prove that they came to the country legally? I thought not.
I am an the progeny of LEGAL immigrants. Legality is a concept that you cannot grasp. That’s why you’re a libtard…well, one of the reasons, you’re just plain stupid too.
You are some kind of Eastern European immigrant and Donald Trump should round you and your family up until you can prove your legal immigration status with proper paperwork. Get out of the country until then. Isn’t that what you believe in?
have you been drinking?
Was Trump drinking when he spent years insisting Obama wasn’t an American citizen, despite incontrovertible evidence?
His so-called birth certificate says his father was born in Kenya. The document is dated 1961, there was no Kenya until 1963. Further, no American hospital would ever record “African” as a race, there are some pretty pale Boers born in Africa.
Don’t know how Trump feels about it now, but I know its a fake…in fact, a bad fake, just like The Magic Muslim himself.
It’s about as genuine as Life Magazine’s cover photo of Lee Oswald taken on a planet with two suns.
Malaria Drumpf is in illegal alien and a known prostitute and you knuckle draggers so are putting that ho up in the White house.
heh
It is unfortunately common for a person to enter, say, Bloomingdale’s, snag a Loeffler Randall handbag and then quickly exit without paying. US retailers lose $10B annually this way. You don’t see grabby headlines about any of that because…they aren’t Apple…
Apple didn’t remove the tethered without having a plan. Certainly the phones self-brick when they move away from the store. They keep the really expensive hardware a little further from the front.
Plan or no plan, that’s still significant material loss.
And like cars, they might be being stolen for parts… battery, screen, glass front, case, camera module, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if cheap repair shops buy such parts from stolen units.
Only security-critical components like the touch ID sensor and such are truly crippled when Apple disables the unit.
Apple needs to make sure that everybody knows that iPhones stolen from the shops are will never work again and cannot be sold.
So long as there are low-lifes who see what they think are $700 iPhones just waiting to be grabbed, they will grab them. If they understood that they automatically become worthless once removed from the store, they might be less likely to steal them.
I would be very reassured if Apple has booby trapped these display iPhones in some way to reveal where they actually get taken to.
I once had to buy back an iPod that had been stolen from my granddaughter and the thieves subsequently realized it wouldn’t work for them. So they sold it to an ignorant kid who didn’t realize he would not be able to get past a startup screen nor could it be wiped and a new identity established thanks to Apple security. Only a correct pin number would work. It was useless to him but I had to pay him what he bought it for to get it back. Fortunately it displayed a message saying it was a stolen iPod and the number where I could be reached.
You are a generous person to pay the kid. Legally you didn’t have to do that. Kudos to you sir.
Thanks. It will be reward enough if enough people who would buy hot Apple gear (at a price too good to be true) and crooks understand not to steal or buy it in the first place because it won’t work. Let’s hope the word gets out more.
Nobody ever does this to the Microsoft store.
Problem is that it’s not clear the phones are actually worthless to the thieves, even after bricking. I have a friend who works for a SF Bay Area police dept, and he says that in many cases the thieves can sell the phones to gullible buyers on CL or EBay who don’t bother to check first whether the phone can be activated.
There’s no way I would buy an iPhone or iPad on eBay. With Craigslist at least you can meet somewhere public and verify it starts up all right. Maybe even ask for ID and a simple proof-of-sale page for them to sign?
To be even safer… go with reputable online resellers, like Orchard. As a buyer, you’ll pay a bit more (and as a seller, you’ll get a bit less), but such is the case with any 3rd party reseller that acts as a neutral broker that verifies the goods are solid.
I bought plenty of used gear on eBay. And twice, the seller thought he could screw me by selling me junk. And both times, eBay’s buyer protection programme refunded the price in full. One of that was that the item received wasn’t the item advertised (I returned it to seller, who refused to refund, so eBay did it), the other was an item I ordered and never received (from China); eBay again refunded all the money.
I also did many transactions on CraigsList. You meet in a public place, you check the device quickly to make sure all looks OK and you exchange the money/goods. So far, no negative experiences with either.
“Problem is that it’s not clear the phones are actually worthless to the thieves,”
Problem is it’s not clear to *everyone*.
Apple could have done a lot more to eliminate the market for stolen iPhones, by doing more to brick them & make them worthless. If *everyone* knew that a stolen phone was automatically now a hunk of useless plastic, the market for stolen iPhones would go away.
But Apple hasn’t done this.
Apple should install automatic locking doors if one of the items is pulled from the plug. That would have kept the morons locked inside until authorities arrived. Once arrested and their poor life choices aired for the whole world to laugh at, future imbeciles would think twice about getting a few buddies together to try and jack a few iPhones because they will know the consequences but because they clearly get away and possibly make a dollar or two, more and more idiots think they can do the same.
The display iPhones should also be fitted with C4 that explodes if taken 10 feet from the store. That will eliminate these lowlifes from our midst.
Or have an internal GPS send a signal to Obama so he can tell the army to launch a nuke to their residence like they are ISIS. Problem solved. I swear, Apple should hire me as head of security. I’ll take care of these rats in no time at all.
You know that could work the other way right? Police could be locked ‘out’ by a criminal/terrorist that knows that policy.
Those all appear to be thefts, not robberies.
All I see is people taking stuff and running. I didn’t see anyone pull out a weapon or appear to threaten to harm people.
Robbery usually considered a felony and a violent crime so it carries greater punishment than theft.
I didn’t know that!
http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-theft-and-vs-robbery/
Yes, all the stolen merchandise was undoubtedly bricked by Apple; Therefore, FAIL thefts.
But I could see Apple going back to locking down all their demo devices again anyway. The pain of applying the lockdown system would still be the lesser amount of suffering, IMHO. I’d also think their theft insurer would demand lockdowns again at this point.
I wish we could cut off peoples hands for this type of behavior. Problem is these theives don’t care what happens to them because its a slap on the wrist these days.
Start shooting stupid people.