Crime Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Canadian customers get lumps of clay instead of iPads

by Chris Rawson (Jan 19th, 2012)

Vancouver, B.C. resident Mark Sandhu bought a new iPad 2 for his wife for Christmas, but when she opened the box, she found a tablet of another kind: a big chunk of clay. Sandhu took his purchase back to Canadian retailer Future Shop and complained, but the store initially thought he was trying ...

Apple Store thieves arrested after robbery

by Mike Schramm (Jan 3rd, 2012)

Apple Stores continue to be a target for theft around the United States, apparently -- this time a robbery went down in Scottsdale, Arizona, where a trio of young thieves busted in the glass doors on an Apple Store, and tried to get away with $75,000 worth of Apple devices. The group robbed the ...

Find my iPad saves Christmas

by Mike Schramm (Dec 29th, 2011)

Here's a nice story thanks to Apple's Find my iPad feature. A family in California had their Christmas gifts stolen last week, along with several other items in the home. Seemingly unrelatedly, another man had his iPad stolen soon after, and he called the police to report the theft. He was able ...

NYPD makes many arrests in iPhone/iPad sting operation

by Mike Schramm (Dec 20th, 2011)

The New York Police Department ran an undercover sting operation recently on vendors and businesses accused of selling stolen iPads and iPhones, and came up with a whopping 141 arrests. That's a pretty crazy bust -- apparently undercover officers actually went out to businesses with iPhone 4s ...

Snobby robbers annoyed by Droids, prefer iPhones

by Chris Rawson (Dec 15th, 2011)

Today's secret word is "techno-elitism" (actually, if you follow that link, you'll find the secret word is a bit more salacious). Whatever your personal views on Android vs. iPhone vs. BlackBerry may be, at least one particular subset of society has apparently made up its mind on the ...

Police break up fake iPhone ring in China

by Kelly Hodgkins (Sep 29th, 2011)

Chinese police have arrested five members of an organized gang that was making and selling fake iPhones. The members would buy components, some of them genuine, on the black market and assemble the phones in rented Shanghai apartments. The police seized about 200 iPhones in the raid. Each ...

Another smash and grab at the Crocker Park Apple Store in Westlake, OH

by David Winograd (May 10th, 2011)

On Friday morning, a smash-and-grab robbery of yet another Apple Store took place at the Crocker Park Apple Store in Westlake, Ohio, an upscale suburb of Cleveland. Around 4:30 AM, three burglars smashed in the front window activating the burglar alarm as well as the store's security cameras, ...

Shooting at Apple Store in San Diego leaves one robbery suspect dead

by Michael Rose (Apr 4th, 2011)

NBC's San Diego affiliate is reporting that an early-morning attempted theft at the Apple Store at Otay Ranch Town Center turned deadly when one of the alleged participants in the smash-and-grab attempt was shot and killed by a security guard. Police told the TV station that the incident ...

Pittsburgh Apple store burgled again

by Josh Helfferich (Mar 17th, 2011)

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Walnut Street Apple Store in the Shadyside neighborhood is closed this morning due to a smash-and-grab theft. A cinder block was used to shatter the glass doors of the store sometime around 5:30 AM, and a phone call to the store confirms that they ...

Fake iPhones seized from LA warehouse

by Mike Schramm (Feb 7th, 2011)

Police in the port of Los Angeles have seized what they say is over $10 million worth of counterfeit Apple devices from a warehouse. The fake iPods, iPhones and iPod touches were reportedly brought in from Asia recently, and they were supposedly going to be sold around CES this past year, duping ...

Feds charge two in June 2010 iPad 3G hacking

by Mike Schramm (Jan 18th, 2011)

Two men have been charged with stealing the email addresses and personal data of over 120,000 iPad users last year. A 26-year-old from San Francisco and a 25-year-old from Fayetteville, Arkansas were charged with hacking into AT&T's servers and stealing the data, scraped from AT&T's website. ...

Cops hacking iPhones for information

by Mike Schramm (Sep 14th, 2010)

I used to think that if I ever got hit by a car while out and about (God forbid, of course), the most useful place to find identifying information would be in my wallet. But that's not really the case any more. As cops are learning these days, the best place in a person's pockets to learn about ...

12 people charged in iTunes royalty fraud

by Mike Schramm (Aug 24th, 2010)

I guess with all of the money flowing around iTunes, sooner or later someone would have to try to steal some of it. Twelve people have been charged in the UK with basically laundering money through iTunes -- they were allegedly uploading their own tracks onto the music sales service, then buying ...

iPhone 4 takes great pictures, breaks up robbery

by Michael Rose (Jun 28th, 2010)

There are many iPhone 4 photos already populating the Interwebs, but relatively few of those galleries end with law enforcement activity. Fox & Friends weekend anchor Clayton Morris (also the host of the Gadgets and Games Web show, where I'm pleased to be an occasional guest) was heading home ...

Thieves steal iPad, finger

by Mike Schramm (Apr 20th, 2010)

Ugh, this is a grisly one -- Bill Jordan picked up an iPad for someone else the other day from an Apple Store in a Colorado mall near him, and as he walked away, some thieves grabbed his bag away so quickly that it took part of his finger off. Scary stuff -- apparently two young men followed him ...