Stephen Silver
Law enforcement officials in the California Bay Area have announced several arrests spanning the entire state, with all of the alleged perpetrators accused of being involved in the recent rash of brazen Apple Store thefts.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, which cited law enforcement sources, seven arrests were made in Oakland Wednesday, in connection with the recent spate of Apple Store thefts throughout the state of California.
"These arrests are in connection to large-scale crimes that were committed throughout the state of California," according to a media statement by Oakland's police department, which added that it had "assisted another law enforcement agency" in the arrests.
California Department of Justice will announce more information about the charges later Thursday, multiple media reports said.
The thefts have taken place throughout California over the course of 2018, with some stores struck by thieves more than once. The store in Palo Alto was robbed twice in as many days last weekend, just hours after CEO Tim Cook visited the store for the release day of the new iPhones.
There have been some arrests recently in the thefts, including one that was caught on video in Santa Rosa last week, but most of the thieves have gotten away successfully.
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16 Comments
With prison overcrowding in California these crooks will be convicted and released.
No love for Samsung or Microsoft products? Maybe Samsung can stage some thefts so they don’t look left out...
It sounds like Apple has started tagging its demonstration products with cellular location tags that call home if they are removed from the store. Note to thieves: Stealing high tech products is a very bad idea. You have no idea how they work and what they can do to you if you take one without permission. They could photograph you, listen to your conversations, identify you and those you are with, track your location and give all the information to the police so it can be used at your trial.
GPS in units makes sense and is about the only way Apple can deal with this (outside of security cameras).
Apple surely doesn't want to start posting security guards in stores as they are very concerned with their image. And I'm sure store policy is for staff to NOT try and stop/arrest anyone as they don't want their staff getting injured over a few thousand dollars in electronics. So they literally have to just sit back and watch if someone wants to steal something. And thieves are taking advantage of that.