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Bay Area Apple Stores Experience String of Robberies

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Apr 12, 2001
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A robbery at an Apple Store in Palo Alto over the weekend has continued a string of Apple Store-related burglaries plaguing the Bay Area over the past few weeks. In Palo Alto, the University Avenue Apple Store was targeted by between eight and ten individuals who drove a rented SUV directly into the store's floor-to-ceiling glass front, and made away with an unspecified amount of iPhones, iPads, "and other gadgets on display."

The SUV used to crash into the Apple Store was subsequently disabled due to the purposeful wreck, and the thieves had to escape on foot. Since the event, which occurred early Sunday morning, four suspects have been arrested.

apple-store-robbery-800x450.jpg
Image via The Mercury News​
"This was a pretty brazen act," said Palo Alto police Sgt. James Reifschneider said, "when somebody breaks their way into a business after hours and uses a vehicle to force their way into a store."
Click to expand...
Elsewhere in and around San Francisco, since October there have been three Apple Store thefts within San Francisco itself, three in Berkeley, three in Burlingame, one in Los Gatos, and one in Corte Madera. These eleven crimes are all believed to be linked, with similar descriptions of the perpetrators connecting each robbery: "a group of young men in their late teens or early 20s wearing hooded sweatshirts."

The hooded thieves were said to rush into each Apple Store and "in about 45 seconds" stole upwards of $20,000 worth of iPhones and iPads tethered to their display tables. The Apple Store on Chestnut Street in San Francisco was hit on Black Friday and again the following Tuesday, at nearly the same time the Apple Store on Stockton Street was robbed. The frequency and "brazenness" of each robbery has lead to increased security in front of most Apple Stores in each area.
"It just keeps happening," said Burlingame resident Angelina Bruno. "It's really strange to feel that unsafe in a town that used to feel so safe."
Click to expand...
The Palo Alto theft is not connected with these other crimes, according to local police. Local news channel KTVU reached out to Apple for a comment, but Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy said "we don't comment on matters of security."

It should be mentioned that in any Apple Store robbery, all of the devices that make it out of the store's Wi-Fi range become useless thanks to Apple's built-in security measure that bricks each smartphone and tablet.

Article Link: Bay Area Apple Stores Experience String of Robberies
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/05/bay-area-apple-stores-robberies/
The thieves aren't the brightest in the bunch. First for stealing, second for not realizing they'll be useless (except perhaps for parts) later. It is interesting that there is no description of the perps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hawk999
I'm gonna say it's, "karma."

Edit: maybe they wanted to test all those hissing iPhones.
 
The theives aren't smart enough to realize about the security. Likely they'll try to sell them and will be unable to. Eventually some will get caught. Commercial burglary, and damages will get likely them prison time.
 
MacRumors said:



A robbery at an Apple Store in Palo Alto over the weekend has continued a string of Apple Store-related burglaries plaguing the Bay Area over the past few weeks. In Palo Alto, the University Avenue Apple Store was targeted by between eight and ten individuals who drove a rented SUV directly into the store's floor-to-ceiling glass front, and made away with an unspecified amount of iPhones, iPads, "and other gadgets on display."

The SUV used to crash into the Apple Store was subsequently disabled due to the purposeful wreck, and the thieves had to escape on foot. Since the event, which occurred early Sunday morning, four suspects have been arrested.

apple-store-robbery-800x450.jpg

Image via The Mercury News​

Elsewhere in and around San Francisco, since October there have been three Apple Store thefts within San Francisco itself, three in Berkeley, three in Burlingame, one in Los Gatos, and one in Corte Madera. These eleven crimes are all believed to be linked, with similar descriptions of the perpetrators connecting each robbery: "a group of young men in their late teens or early 20s wearing hooded sweatshirts."

The hooded thieves were said to rush into each Apple Store and "in about 45 seconds" stole upwards of $20,000 worth of iPhones and iPads tethered to their display tables. The Apple Store on Chestnut Street in San Francisco was hit on Black Friday and again the following Tuesday, at nearly the same time the Apple Store on Stockton Street was robbed. The frequency and "brazenness" of each robbery has lead to increased security in front of most Apple Stores in each area.
The Palo Alto theft is not connected with these other crimes, according to local police. Local news channel KTVU reached out to Apple for a comment, but Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy said "we don't comment on matters of security."

It should be mentioned that in any Apple Store robbery, all of the devices that make it out of the store's Wi-Fi range become useless thanks to Apple's built-in security measure that bricks each smartphone and tablet.

Article Link: Bay Area Apple Stores Experience String of Robberies
Click to expand...
 
centauratlas said:
The thieves aren't the brightest in the bunch. First for stealing, second for not realizing they'll be useless (except perhaps for parts) later. It is interesting that there is no description of the perps.
Click to expand...
They don't care. They'll sell them under fake accounts and take the money and run
 
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Reactions: AgentAnonymous
I've seen something like this in Las Vegas. I was in one of the stores looking at the Touch Bar MBPs the night they arrived at my closest store. I was fooling around with it and my kids were playing on the iPads. 8-10 hooded individuals came in and very quickly grabbed all the iPhones and iPads from the front tables. Pretty scary stuff.
 
rock6079 said:
They are not useless, they are sold for parts and are very valuable.
Click to expand...

The criminals they showed on the local news(of the 4 that were arrested).. didn't seem that bright to steal apple products to sell them for parts.. I would not go into more details so i don't sound like a racist...
 
They need to have an iron-clad gate come down on all sides of the stores and lock the guys in until the cops get there.
 
So they aren't worth upwards of $20,000... because of the bricking. Yes I understand selling for parts, but you can't get $20,000 worth of parts from less than a minute of stealing bricked devices.
 
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