Filed under: Retail, Odds and ends, Apple
More from the police blotter: Sagemore Apple Store hit by burglars
While the past few days have seen a spy saga of a stolen laptop and a few rapidly recovered stolen iPhones, the story at the Sagemore Apple Store in Marlton, New Jersey is more of your basic "five guys vs. a plate-glass door." A well-organized 2 am robbery at the store netted the team a substantial haul of 23 MacBook Pro laptops, 14 iPhones and nine iPod touch handhelds.Anyone with tips on the identity of the masked bandits is being asked to call police at 856-983-1118 or the confidential tip line at 856-988-4699.
Thanks to Justin for sending this in. H/T to ifoAppleStore, which (unbeknownst to us) also reported the story yesterday afternoon.
Here's the video from ABC affiliate WPVI-TV in Philadelphia:
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Noah said 10:42PM on 9-02-2009
That's awesome.
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oliver hart said 11:37PM on 9-02-2009
I agree to an extent. But at least nobody was hurt.
Jordan said 1:30AM on 9-03-2009
I'm just glad that all the extra I've paid in Apple tax isn't sitting in an Apple bank account somewhere. I can now pretend it went to pay for what was stolen.
Randy Cornetta said 9:36AM on 9-03-2009
Wow, this is the one I shop at!
Dave said 10:52PM on 9-02-2009
Uh... were there security cables on the laptops? It looks like they just had their power cables attached.
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puhsitch said 12:26AM on 9-03-2009
Apple Stores surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly) don't use real security cables on the laptops. Each one is simply attached to a special ethernet cable that triggers a very loud alarm when removed. iPhones and iPods have an adhesive thing that works in a similar way.
I guess they're ensuring that if someone is going to steal something, they're going to have to have the balls to not be subtle about it.
Xanthonus said 10:52PM on 9-02-2009
Damn that was pro stuff right there
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MAB! said 11:11AM on 9-03-2009
I was at an Office Depot one night when 4 men and 1 woman went into the store, the woman distracted one of the employees that worked the area by calmly asking questions while the other 4 took off with laptops under their jackets. It was surprisingly well planned. And they knew how to disable the alarms in-store. I didn't even notice until one of the employees said "WHAT THE HELL?!"
I guess the group was hitting all of the staples/office depot stores in our area. Bastards.
icepod said 10:55PM on 9-02-2009
Here we go again...one more time: Let's use MobileMe back to my Mac!
And Apple should have a serial number 'lo-jack' for their store products...
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ssschmidt said 10:56PM on 9-02-2009
Well, if I was the owner of an Apple store, with that much tech on display (and a very OPEN format of display) , I can promise that E V E R Y T H I N G would be lo-jacked. Since they probably ARE trackable, the only thing the computers would be good for would be as parts. If they were to connect to the internet, they can probably call home. i-phones and touches? i-tunes can probably snitch them out. Means that the Cinema Displays and the less tech i-pods and any accessories are all that can be easily gotten rid of without tracing. Of course when the first item bleeps on a google map at the local police station, they can probably recover the majority of the haul.
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cmsb55 said 1:09AM on 9-03-2009
Formatting would erase all of the stuff you just mentioned. The only identifiable thing remaining would be serial numbers.
theotherkevin said 2:07AM on 9-03-2009
Why would Apple invest in any of that when they can simply write it off and collect the insurance? Even if Apple traced the notebooks what would be the point? They certainly wouldn’t save anything for recovering the notebooks because they would be used as evidence and never resold. Additionally, Lo-Jack is easily bypassed. It is simply not cost effective to try and recover the notebooks. And as far as finding the perpetuators, Apple will let the police do that the old fashion way.
cupman31 said 12:57AM on 9-04-2009
...after the thieves have already made their money by selling the stuff.
ElevatorHappyFun said 10:59PM on 9-02-2009
inside job. current or ex-employee.
if they were employees i bet they know to turn off the wifi instantly and format the drive or even replace them.
the phones? thats tougher, as they "dial home" as soon as you turn them on, with the serial number and sim card number in tow.
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Chris said 12:31AM on 9-03-2009
No way. Current employees steal while on the clock. They want to get paid for their work.
All kidding aside, this is not an inside job at all. Although I could see an Ex employee being the mastermind behind the thugs?
Doc Izzy said 12:32AM on 9-03-2009
No employee would be dumb enough to steal the floor models.
Kerio said 1:48AM on 9-03-2009
pff, just switch the sim with one that isn't enabled to use data connections, in a place without WiFi hotspots... hold on a sec...
*brb apple store*
SubGenius said 2:24PM on 9-03-2009
Next time you are in an Apple Store, try popping out the SIM card in an iPhone. You can't they are superglued in there. So these stolen phones are practically useless as phones.
Todd said 11:04PM on 9-02-2009
I was just there on Sunday afternoon and the one door was already broken and replaced with a wood door so was that a botched trial run?
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Cody said 11:08PM on 9-02-2009
Security cables in Apple stores are connected through ethernet, I guarantee if the computers were hooked up as they should have been, the ethernet ports would be broken.
Apple does not use lo-jack, however they do keep a record of serial numbers for the machines on the floor, along with their location in the store, I'm sure all the serial numbers have been reported, and if anyone tries to register them, or bring them into the genius bar (maybe for that ethernet port), they will be able to take care of it.
Either way, I'm sure these guys stand to make a pretty penny for selling these things to unsuspecting people.
Hopefully they get caught :)
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