Burglars raid Texas Apple Store & steal almost 500 iPhones, AirPods, Apple Watches

Four masked people broke into Apple The Woodlands store in Texas on Monday, August 29, making off with with hundreds of thousands of dollars of brand new merchandise.

Unlike the recent Apple Covent Garden robbery in London, the Texas raid took place before opening hours.

According to local news channel ABC 13, the Montgomery County Sheriff's office dispatched deputies to the store inside The Woodlands Mall at around 8 a.m. local time.

The deputies report that four suspects forced their way into the store. "A large quantity of merchandise was stolen from the store," said the Sheriff's office in a press release, "including over 200 Apple Watches, over 50 AirPods, and over 220 phones."

MCTXSheriff Investigates Apple Store Burglary at The Woodlands Mall https://t.co/4zuzIFW7mv pic.twitter.com/0aV9EhapNt
— MCTXSheriff (@MCTXSheriff) August 29, 2022

"The suspects were seen leaving the scene in [a] grey four-door passenger car," it continued.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office is asking for anyone with information to call them on 936-760-5800, or Crime Stoppers at 1800-392-STOP.

11 Comments

goodbyeranch 248 comments · 9 Years

About 2 years ago

Article fails to mention this is north of Houston

Pancake 45 comments · 2 Years

goodbyeranch said:

Article fails to mention this is north of Houston

Right‽ They also didn’t mention that Texas is in the US of A! Shoddy journalism I tell you. Shoddy.

john-useless 70 comments · 4 Years

Every time an Apple Store theft makes the news, one thought occurs: Can't Apple simply remotely disable any stolen product that is capable of broadcasting its own identity via Bluetooth, WiFi, and/or the FindMy network? One would think that Apple could quickly identify the serial number of every item that leaves a store.

Apple couldn't prevent a stolen Mac, Watch, iPhone, AirPod, AirTag, monitor, or Apple TV from being powered on … but for new, unregistered products, I would have thought that Apple could potentially do something to prevent them from being registered as new, legally-purchased items — and possibly even alert authorities as to the locations of stolen goods.

MacPro 19811 comments · 18 Years

john-useless said:

Every time an Apple Store theft makes the news, one thought occurs: Can't Apple simply remotely disable any stolen product that is capable of broadcasting its own identity via Bluetooth, WiFi, and/or the FindMy network? One would think that Apple could quickly identify the serial number of every item that leaves a store.

Apple couldn't prevent a stolen Mac, Watch, iPhone, AirPod, AirTag, monitor, or Apple TV from being powered on … but for new, unregistered products, I would have thought that Apple could potentially do something to prevent them from being registered as new, legally-purchased items — and possibly even alert authorities as to the locations of stolen goods.

I always wonder the same thing. I am usually told the spare parts are worth the theft even if they were bricked. It's a shame Apple could trigger them to all scream "help!" endlessly while calling 911 and sending locations, and the moment they are powered off again go into a coma only Apple can awaken them from whilst still sending out location pings. Spraying that bank note theft dye would be a nice addition.

danox 3364 comments · 11 Years

Woodlands a well off distant suburb to Houston 30-33 miles to the north, house prices are unaffordable to more than half of all Native Texans. However very affordable cash wise if you are a Yankee moving into Texas however.