California siblings plead guilty to stealing 800 MacBooks worth $2.3 million

A pair of California siblings who stole roughly 800 MacBooks over seven years, totaling over $2.3 million in retail value, have pleaded guilty to federal offenses relating to the crime.

Patricia Castaneda worked in the School of Humanities and Sciences at a private university in Stanford. During her time at the university, she was responsible for ordering MacBooks for its faculty and staff.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, she began stealing and selling MacBooks she ordered for cash in 2009 or 2010. Initially, Castaneda sold them to an individual she met over Facebook.

In 2016, she began giving the MacBooks to her brother, Eric Castaneda, who would transport them to an individual in Folsom, who resold the MacBooks to buyers outside California.

In one decade, the two had managed to steal over $2.3 million in retail value, which cost the university more than $4 million in total.

Patricia Castaneda pleaded guilty to federal program theft, and in a separate case, her brother pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate.

U.S. district judge Kimberly J. Mueller is set to sentence the pair on June 7. Patricia Castaneda will face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Eric Castaneda faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In November of 2020, thieves hijacked a truck in England carrying over 48 pallets of Apple products, totaling $6 million in retail value.

Also in November, a group of five Amazon employees was arrested for stealing iPhones from a logistics center in Madrid, Spain. The retail value was believed to be nearly $600,000.

Stay on top of all Apple news right from your HomePod. Say, "Hey, Siri, play AppleInsider," and you'll get latest AppleInsider Podcast. Or ask your HomePod mini for "AppleInsider Daily" instead and you'll hear a fast update direct from our news team. And, if you're interested in Apple-centric home automation, say "Hey, Siri, play HomeKit Insider," and you'll be listening to our newest specialized podcast in moments.

16 Comments

sflocal 16 Years · 6138 comments

About 3 years ago

In addition to the fine, will they be responsible for reimbursing the school? I couldn't find any mention on that.

tenthousandthings 17 Years · 1060 comments

Just to be clear, there is only one “private university in Stanford” — Stanford University. I guess there are legal reasons why the university isn’t named. According to a Wikipedia, much of the university isn’t, technically, in Palo Alto — it’s in an unincorporated area, designated “Stanford.”

Eric_WVGG 8 Years · 969 comments

sflocal said:

In addition to the fine, will they be responsible for reimbursing the school? I couldn't find any mention on that.

Isn't it kind of moot? Stealing $2.3m worth of laptops doesn't mean they're sitting on $2.3 million dollars, stolen goods sell for a fraction of retail prices. After legal fees, maybe sitting on a couple hundred thousand dollars… if the courts say "okay now you owe four million dollars" in ten years, well where's that money going to come from? A lifetime of debt and servitude? No, the university is going to take a wash on it.

MacPro 18 Years · 19845 comments

How did they get away with it for so long and how were they caught?

Eric_WVGG said:

sflocal said:

In addition to the fine, will they be responsible for reimbursing the school? I couldn't find any mention on that.

Isn't it kind of moot? Stealing $2.3m worth of laptops doesn't mean they're sitting on $2.3 million dollars, stolen goods sell for a fraction of retail prices. After legal fees, maybe sitting on a couple hundred thousand dollars… if the courts say "okay now you owe four million dollars" in ten years, well where's that money going to come from? A lifetime of debt and servitude? No, the university is going to take a wash on it.

Not really... a while back, a CEO/Founder friend of mine caught his CFO embezzling money from him for years. Was jailed for a few years and in addition to a fine, was ordered to pay back all the money he stole. The miscreant is broke, but nonetheless, he's on the hook for all that money. Any job he gets, it will be garnished. My friend know's he'll never see all the money, but it's more the principal. So no, it's not moot. I'd rather the cloud of debt hover over these thieves than not.

I would expect the same from these Apple thieves. It's irrelevant if they don't have any of the money they made selling the stolen laptops. They should be responsible for the full retail price of each and every MacBook that was stolen, not the value they sold it at.