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$16,000 Worth of iPhones Stolen from Charlotte Apple Store in Apparent Inside Job

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Apr 12, 2001
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The Charlotte Observer reports that a total of 25 iPhones valued at over $16,000 have been reported stolen from Apple's Northlake Mall retail store in Charlotte, North Carolina. While smash-and-grab robberies are not terribly unusual at Apple retail stores, this case has an unusual twist in that the suspect appears to have been an employee of the store.
"The iPhones were stolen from the Genius Room located inside of the store," a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report says. "The suspect did have access to the Genius Room."

The stolen phones, which are valued at $16,425, include 22 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S models, one 64-GB 4S model, one eight-GB iPhone 4 model and one 32-GB 4S model.
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Charlotte's WBTV confirms that the suspect was a store employee and that the 25 phones were stolen over a period of time between December 1 and January 11. Police are reportedly searching for the suspect.

charlotte_northlake_mall_store.jpg



Apple's Northlake Mall retail store is one of two in the Charlotte area, having just opened last August.

Article Link: $16,000 Worth of iPhones Stolen from Charlotte Apple Store in Apparent Inside Job
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/22/16000-worth-of-iphones-stolen-from-charlotte-apple-store-in-apparent-inside-job/
They're going to find the employee, and he's going to get in trouble - probably put behind bars.

Not sure why people do these stupid things.
 
It Doesn't Say Much for Charlotte, Does it?

I'm sorry, Charlotte has really built itself up in the last several years, but this is astonishing, and disappointing.
 
It's really unfortunate that someone would take advantage of their position in that way, although I'm confident that it won't take long to find and arrest him/her.

PatrickFromCA said:
It Doesn't Say Much for Charlotte, Does it?

I'm sorry, Charlotte has really built itself up in the last several years, but this is astonishing, and disappointing.
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I don't think this says anything about Charlotte; just the lengths to which thieves will go.
 
PatrickFromCA said:
It Doesn't Say Much for Charlotte, Does it?
I'm sorry, Charlotte has really built itself up in the last several years, but this is astonishing, and disappointing.
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Let's go with that logic, shall we?

It doesn't say much for:

Apple Employees
People who want to own iPhones
Residents of Charlotte
Residents of North Carolina
Americans
Shop workers
Men/Women (Delete as applicable)
Whites/Blacks/Asians/Indians/etc (Delete as applicable)
People

Kinda hard to generalise fron one person's actions.

Steve
 
wordoflife said:
They're going to find the employee, and he's going to get in trouble - probably put behind bars.

Not sure why people do these stupid things.
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Durrrr, for money?

Why else do you think people drug deal, prostitute, steal organs and the list of illegal things carry on.

Whether they're going to find him/her is if they're still in the country and if there's enough evidence to convict the suspect.

PatrickFromCA said:
I'm sorry, Charlotte has really built itself up in the last several years, but this is astonishing, and disappointing.
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I'm sorry but internet posters have really built themselves up over the last several years, but this is astonishing and disappointing to read such a generalisation. /s

PS. No matter where you're or where you're at from you can still commit crime. It's the individual's mindset for greed.
 
What's astonishing is that someone actually used "astonishing and disappointing" in reference to a daily occurrence in every state and city on earth!!
 
Must have been stealing service part units, because the retail box versions are kept in a locked cage. Surprising he was able to pull this off, because the GR is typically pretty busy during business hours. Pretty rare to be in there by yourself.
 
I wouldn't think this says anything about the place. Honestly, this could have happened anywhere.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Mmmmm stealing from Apple is like stealing from the mob. He could have balls but i guess hes just stupid.
 
wordoflife said:
They're going to find the employee, and he's going to get in trouble - probably put behind bars.

Not sure why people do these stupid things.
Click to expand...

How do we know its a He and not a She, exactly? ;)

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Ishmumrhmn said:
Is the store in the picture in Metrotown or does every apple store look the same :O
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They mostly all look the same except the large popular ones such as New York and London.

Our second London shop in Brent Cross looks identical to the one pictured.
 
Every unit has a unique UDID. I would think Apple knows what batch went where and a few minutes looking threw their records would yield the UDIDs of the stolen devices. My guess is, soon as one is activated or it hits an Apple server for anything, Apple will be able to locate it and eventually it will be traced back to the perpetrator of the crime.
 
I hope they sell them at a reasonable price. Is it safe to buy stolen iPhone? Can it be tracked via serial number or something? I wouldn't mind getting a stolen 4S if I can find one that is brand new(not off an innocent person). If they were cheaper I would buy lol

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CplBadboy said:
Apple need to get rid of those cardboard people from the shop windows. They're freaky. Everytime I pass an Apple store I get a bit of a fright and literally on the verge of chinning one through the glass!;)
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I saw an old woman fall over backwards from a clothing shop mannequin. I couldn't hold back the laughter but I helped her up

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rmwebs said:
How do we know its a He and not a She, exactly? ;)

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They mostly all look the same except the large popular ones such as New York and London.

Our second London shop in Brent Cross looks identical to the one pictured.
Click to expand...

Must have farted in the room. Girls don't fart
 
Why would you steal already activated, mostly 16GB iPhones?!?!?!?

They literally have box loads of unactivated iPhones of all capacities...
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

This is where you have to know your limits as a thief. 2 or 3 would have been easy to explain away as miscounted or just lost in the store somewhere. 25 is going to raise a a red flag.
 
This raises a question for me. As with the looting in London last year, if someone steals an iphone, ipad, etc, surely the serial number would identify it as a stolen unit, and you wouldn't be able to activate it. So (and this is my reason for asking), if you were to inadvertently buy a stolen item off eBay, where do you stand..? I'd like to buy my wife a 2nd hand iPad (to stop her hogging mine! :D), but am really worried that I'd end up having it confiscated when I tried to restore it. And yes, I know that in all probability, most iPads on eBay aren't stolen, but it would be just my luck..

Does anyone have any experience of such a situation..? What did Apple do..?
 
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