Apple stores are notorious targets for thieves, and as a result, they’re heavily secured by many large men. But as it turns out, all you need to rob an Apple Store is a blue t-shirt and some serious confidence.
According to an NYPD report spotted by DNAInfo, two thieves dressed as Apple Store employees made off with 19 iPhones from Apple’s SoHo store on June 1st. Police are “still investigating the incident.”
According to the police report obtained by DNAInfo, the heist wasn’t exactly complicated:
“The thief “dressed similarly” to store employees — who usually wear blue T-shirts imprinted with an Apple logo — and walked right into an electronics repair room at about 5:30 p.m. on June 1.
The man grabbed 19 iPhones from a drawer inside the room, worth a total of $16,130, then handed them over to another thief. That man hid the phones under his shirt, and the pair walked out of the store.”
Dressing up as an employee and tailgaiting people into the secure back rooms is about the oldest ploy in the books. What’s really surprising here is that it worked — I’m rather surprised that Apple employees didn’t notice bulging t-shirts trying hard to exit the building.
But in fairness to Apple, it’s also a difficult ploy to counter. The after-work rush is one of the busiest times of the day: real employees are busy hustling iPhones to paying customers, and the security is probably busy trying to stop school kids smearing iPads with fingerprints.
There’s probably a joke here about not needing to be a Genius to steal from an Apple Store, but I’m going to pass, and instead just remind the wannabe Catch Me If You Can impersonators how that movie ended.
