Crime Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

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 ...

Find my iPhone rescues two phones at Busch Gardens

by Mel Martin (Feb 25th, 2010)

It was like something out of CSI. The St. Petersburg Times is reporting that the snatched iPhones incident began when a mom and her stepdaughter were getting aboard the SheiKra roller coaster at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. The theme park provides unlocked storage bins for people to put things ...

Stolen laptop returned courtesy Back to My Mac information and police work

by Mel Martin (Dec 15th, 2009)

In late August we told you the story of 'Jim' who had his Mac laptop stolen along with some other computers and household goods. For the heck of it, he tried using Back to My Mac to find his machine. Back to My Mac is a feature of Apple's MobileMe service. Jim was surprised to find the Mac was ...

Apple thefts continue, but don't work so well for the crooks

by Mel Martin (Sep 2nd, 2009)

Another day, another dumb criminal gets snared by Apple technology. In this case, 2 dumb criminals. This latest foiled crime involved the theft of 4 iPhones from the Apple Palisades store in West Nyack, New York. According to the Journal News up that way, the two crooks ran from the store, and ...

World's dumbest crooks: the saga continues

by Mel Martin (Sep 1st, 2009)

Yesterday we told you about some crooks that broke into a house and made off with a couple of Macs and a PC. We recounted how the victim used his replacement MacBook Pro to screen share with the stolen device, and even watch as someone filled out an online form to find a job, displaying an address, ...

An incredible stolen Mac story without a final chapter

by Mel Martin (Aug 31st, 2009)

Update 2:30p ET 9/1: We've heard more from the theft victim; see the latest news on this crime story here. We're getting our share of crime stories lately, and today's is really a jaw dropper. I'm going to be sketchy on details and locations because there is an investigation underway. Here's ...

iPhone turns Pittsburgh man into Columbo, helps cops catch robbers

by Mel Martin (Aug 30th, 2009)

The MobileMe Find my iPhone service certainly paid off for a Pittsburgh area man. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that police said the man was robbed at gunpoint in Shadyside (a neigborhood on the east side of Pittsburgh, home to an Apple Store) by two men who asked for his credit cards and the ...