“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.]