“NYPD detectives are investigating the theft of Apple electronics from several New York-area Target stores for a possible link to a major hack that compromised the credit and debit cards of 40 million of the retail giant’s customers,” Larry Celona reports for The New York Post.
“The heists were discovered by chance in Flatbush Thursday when Officers Ray Higgins and John Hoder of the Brooklyn South Anti-crime Unit pulled over three men in a Dodge Caravan for blowing a red light, according to law-enforcement sources,” Celona reports. “A search of the vehicle turned up $20,000 worth of Apple goods in Target shopping bags inside the trunk. Receipts for the devices — 17 Apple iPad Airs, 11 iTouches [sic] and 14 iPad Minis — showed they had been purchased at area Targets, predominantly on Long Island, sources said.”
“The goods allegedly were bought with gift cards that had been purchased with stolen credit card,” Celona reports. “The NYPD Financial Crimes Unit is investigating whether the stolen cards have anything to do with the unauthorized access over the past 2¹/₂ weeks of data from Target customers’ credit and debit cards.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Target hit by massive credit-card breach – December 19, 2013
Isn’t it a good thing that so many crooks are morons? Blowing a red light with $20,000 of stolen goods in the trunk – brilliant!
The heck with “blowing a red light”… Three men in a caravan is cause enough to be stopped by police… I mean… a CARAVAN!
One of our vehicles actually is a Caravan… so back off! 😉
Feelin’ Lucky, Punk? Burn them alive, effing thieves, I hate credit card thieves, well, thieves in general.
I prefer daily floggings for them until they see the error of their ways and are truly repentant.
Floggings, for some liberal reason, they were outlawed back in the late 50s early 60s. Rapists were the biggest targets in the good old days in Canada.
As long as the floggings are done in the spirit of education and reform rather than as vengeful punishment.
Apparently stealing would stop if Apple quit making stuff. New York already says that Apple is responsible for 20% of all muggings. Notice this story originate in New York so expect another Pulitzer prize for the NYT tying Apple into the high crime rate.
Everyone can relax. Bloomberg will be coming out with a new law to address the issue.
Unless he does it in the next ten days, it won’t happen.
Beginning 1 January 2014, Bill DeBlasio will be the new NYC mayor.
He’s going to make it illegal to buy Apple products over 16oz?
Innovation is DaNgErOUs!
Outlaw invention!
Forbid the extraordinary!
Mediocrity for everyone makes for a safer world.
(I am reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s story ‘Harrison Bergeron’. It was beautifully portrayed in the PBS program ‘Between Time and Timbuktu’).
These are not the hackers who stole the 40 million debit and credit cards. By comparison, these were amateurs.
but that theft took place just 2 weeks ago, so if these theives used gift cards bought with those numbers then they should have a direct connection to hackers
The “direct connection” is that they bought some fake credit cards from someone who bought stolen numbers online from another criminal who bought the numbers in large batches from someone who may or may not have been the original thief.
Trust me, there’s no way these idiots will lead investigators all the way back to the original crooks. Credit card fraud just has too many layers now.
Read the book “Kingpin” if you want to know how it works. And the only reason they caught that guy is because he decided he should run the online carding forum himself.
——RM
$20,000 worth of Apple goods could have been just 2 Mac Pros.
Maxed out, that is!
Or one Dell laptop. (with total cost of ownership)
I wonder if these thieves are black ?
Shhhh, you are not allowed to say that.
I don’t wonder who is racist.
Damn your bigotry “Snoop Dogg”. You’ve pulled this crap before at MDN, spewing hate at Pakistanis. Is it your goal to hurt people? Is that your manifesto? Doesn’t that sound exactly like a troll thing to do?
Maybe what we should be hating is the haters.
Of course they were. No surprise there.
You can’t fight statistics. Don’t be calling it racial profiling either. It looks like a dog and barks like a dog, guess what it’s a dog
It could be a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Many of the worst haters ARE merely ventriloquist dummies. Feed them hate talking points, watch them puke back the hate in public. They never seem to notice the manipulating arm stuck up their arse.
More T N B.
I thought Macs were only desirable to creative types.