Crime blotter: Apple Store theft claims $21,000 worth of merchandise

The Apple Store in Pleasanton

The latest in an occasional AppleInsider series, looking at the latest in Apple-related crime.

The Pleasanton Police Department in California is looking into a theft at the Apple Store in that town on July 22.

According to Pleasonton Weekly, two suspects entered the store and took $21,000 worth of iPhones, Macs, and other merchandise. The suspects were wearing “all black clothing and black ski masks, the report said.

A football player for LSU turned himself in on July 22 and was charged with video voyeurism after allegedly recording sex with a woman without her consent, The New York Post reported.

Javien Toviano was suspended from the football team, although by August 1, he had returned to the team, as the case was “under review,” CBS Sports reported.

The woman told police she had found the videos on an iPad belonging to Toviano, although she claimed he had recorded them using a clock equipped with a camera.

In July, it was a real dog-bites-phone story in Coconut Creek, Fla.

According to the Coconut Creek Talk crime blotter on July 24, “a black iPhone 15 Pro was bitten by a K-9 named Lucky while inside an officer’s pocket and destroyed.”

Police in New York City are looking for a man who they say stole MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers from women on two separate occasions in July.

According to QNS, the first theft occurred on July 8, when the man approached a woman near Queens Center Mall, grabbed the MacBook Air from under her arm, and fled. On July 10, the thief opened a car door and took two MacBook Pro devices from the passenger seat.

A reward of up to $3,500 is being offered to those with information leading to an arrest.

There were headlines on July 31 after the Department of Homeland Security arrested a man in Alabama with 180 Apple devices in his car, revealing a multi-state fraud ring.

In what appeared to be an unrelated incident on July 30, a woman was pulled over in Oklahoma after an improper right turn. As part of the stop, police discovered counterfeit Apple Watches, AirPods, and iPhones, OKC Fox reported.

The woman was charged with traffic violation, CDS, and violating the Anti-Counterfeiting Act.

A nine-year-old boy had his iPhone stolen from him at gunpoint in late July, WCVB reported.

The boy was at a playground in Boston with a friend and the friend’s mother when two teenagers approached him with a gun. They demanded his phone and, later, his password.

According to Newport Dispatch, the two were arrested after video evidence of the thefts. One of the men was charged with larceny over $1,200, while the other received charges of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

After a Minnesota woman called the police to report her Apple Watch was stolen from her car, a ping from the device led to the home of a man who was on supervised probation.

According to Valley News Live, police followed the ping to the man’s apartment, where they found the Apple Watch, as well as a bong that they said the man had used to smoke methamphetamine. The man then resisted arrest and banged his head on a partition in the police car; he could be seen wearing a heavy head bandage in his arrest photo.

According to The Denton Record-Chronicle, a man had lost his iPhone, only to return and find it was gone. When officers looked at the surveillance video, they saw another man taking the phone, leading to a warrant for his arrest.

According to Ink Free News, the iPhone’s owner had set the device down on the bar, later to find it was gone. The woman was later caught on surveillance video taking the device and an attached wallet with $200 in cash and credit cards.

The woman was charged with theft where the value of the property is between $750 and $50,000.