A group of thieves has been taking a big bite out of Apple Store customers by purloining computers in more than 100 "follow away" burglaries across the region, authorities said.Don't leave them in plain view? It seems this group knows the MacBook Pro is in your Honda even if you don't cover it up with the Snuggie blanket. Just go home.
Last month, the Orange County district attorney's office charged three Los Angeles residents -- Garzon Diaz, Louis Lopez and John Rodriguez -- with burglary and grand theft in connection with 28 cases in which thieves broke into vehicles and stole computers from customers who had visited Apple retail stores.
Manhattan Beach Police Sgt. Brian Brown said Tuesday that detectives were continuing their investigation into 15 similar cases since September in which laptops and desktop computers were stolen from vehicles of customers of the Apple Store at the Village Mall on Sepulveda Boulevard.
The suspects sought by Manhattan Beach police had a specific method of operation, Brown said. They stake out an Apple store and choose their target. Then they follow their prospective victims when they drive to another shop or a parking spot near their home. If computers are left unattended inside the vehicle, the thieves strike.
His department issued a warning to consumers Tuesday not to leave computers or other expensive items in their vehicles in plain view.
I guess this would be unlikely in Hawaii, though we do have our fair share of meth heads. Maybe Hawaii and SoCal could do with the occasional snowfall like in South Korea, or a deep freeze like back east, just to give consumers a break from the crime.
(Sudden epiphany: Could this be a plot by Bill Gates to get people to buy Windows boxes again? )
That's the blog post headline of the day, right there!
ReplyDeleteDoesn't this one fall under "common sense"? God, some people are stupid! Back home, I had a neighbor who was into conspicuous consumption and loved to leave the cardboard containers of his purchases in the back alley for all of us to see on trash day. This idiot also could not understand why his house was repeatedly burglarized by the local riff-raff.
ReplyDeleteDouglas, yes, it does fall under common sense. I think it's newsworthy because these guys are specifically targeting the Apple Store customers.
ReplyDeleteAnd I dare say that some of the victims have been taking reasonable measures to hide their purchases; rather, they have been targeted because of the store they're walking out of.