Those new iPad minis are popular -- everybody wants them. In fact, two thieves wanted them so badly that they stole 3,600 of the little tablets in a well-organized heist at New York's JFK airport.

The pair showed up at a cargo building at the airport around midnight on Monday, November 12 and used a forklift from the facility to load two pallets loaded with US$1.5 million worth of iPad minis into a white tractor trailer truck marked with CEVA on the side. According to an exclusive report in the NY Post, the crooks would have probably made off with three more pallets, but were "challenged by an airport worker returning from dinner."

Investigators believe that the theft of the minis was an inside job, and have been questioning airport workers. Three of the workers have been given polygraph tests. Someone apparently let the thieves into the secured area, then let them out after the iPad minis were loaded onto the truck.

The cargo facility is the same one where almost $5 million in cash and $900,000 worth of jewelry were stolen in 1978 in a heist that was the inspiration for portions of the gangster flick Goodfellas.