Police warn of bad Apples that fell off the back of a truck after highway robbery
- Reference: 1605853628
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/11/20/police_warn_of_bad_apples/
- Source link:
"The incident took place on the southbound slip road at Junction 18 of the M1, between 7.45pm and 8pm on Tuesday, November 10, when the lorry driver and security guard were targeted and tied up," says Northamptonshire Police's [1]appeal for help solving the crime.
The appeal asks for help from anyone who has been offered "Apple products for sale in unusual circumstances, or who knows of anyone who is selling such items at low-cost prices."
You can also help if you were in the area and spotted something out of the ordinary at the time of the theft, or have dashcam footage from the area.
Places of interest include Eldon Close in the village of Crick, where police say the offenders transferred the trailer on to a waiting truck "and drove off leaving the lorry driver and security guard behind."
The truck used was found in Lutterworth, Leicestershire, just 12km to the North.
The Register used Google Maps to check out the [2]location of the heist and couldn't help but notice that tech distributor Ingram Micro has a facility nearby and that Eldon Close is home to other logistics facilities.
Your humble hack suggests the Apple bandits were well aware of both factoids, targeted a shipment on its way to or from Ingram, and pulled into another logistics facility to swap loads while carrying on as if they absolutely had the right to be there.
And then they were gone.
Anyone with information is asked to call Northamptonshire Police on 101 quoting reference number 20000595599. Calling Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 is another, anonymous, reporting option. ®
Get our [3]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.northants.police.uk/news/northants/news/appeals/2020/november-20/a-total-of-5-million-worth-of-apple-products-stolen-in-robbery/
[2] https://goo.gl/maps/4eP5Lff94L4MbgTT6
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Yes, they will.
The hapless, naïve mark (or negligently myopic receiver-of-stolen-goods) is not intended to come out of this situation ahead of the game.
Inside Job, and not the sharpest whats it in the thingy
unless the truck had a big shiny Apple painted on the outside... Especially with 48 pallets. And, if on pallets, Apple knows which phones to brick once they come on line, and which locations to send johnny law.
Re: Inside Job, and not the sharpest whats it in the thingy
Apple recently paid a huge bug bounty to some enterprising youngs hackers for, amongst other things, poor authentication security on the Dassault software that Apple use for managing warehouses and logistics. Naturally they informed Apple and only disclosed their work after Apple's security team gave them the nod.
So yeah, could be inside job. Could be patient thieves staking out area and discerning patterns. Could be a security hole in logistics.
Re: Inside Job, and not the sharpest whats it in the thingy
ERP compromise perhaps
I think the feeling is, it’s not so much about if and when a company gets hacked, but if and when they actually get around to discovering they’ve been hacked.
Not a lot of cash available for those operations according to the decision makers of a lot of conpanies.
To add onto this dilemma, anybody going to school in the UK may discover their IT lessons to be a “bit shit”
IT, a janitorial role in the eyes of the many “adults” upstairs
I had ordered an Apple thing (not iPhone) as a gift from a large department store online and it didn’t arrive. When I called them about it they explained a large shipment to the courier has “disappeared” on the same day. Seems there’s a lot of it going on.
Would it not be the worst purchase ever? I mean, presumably these things will identify themselves when logging in to iCloud, doing a software update etc - and then get locked. Or do they have to have been signed in initially for this functionality to activate?
Yeah of course but it doesn't matter by that point, the thieves will have your money already and be long gone.
This article doesn't say what items were nicked. Certainly stolen iPhones aren't easy to use, but I don't know if Macs can be remotely bricked with a serial number.
Does logging on to iCloud give Apple the serial number of the Mac?
parts cant be cloud locked
It's difficult to know nowadays who is stealing from whom. nowadays.
It's difficult to know nowadays who is stealing from whom, the way these multi-nationals operate with Apple's 30% take of iOS Apps, the massive mark-ups on memory/ssd storage options, the deliberate obsolescence of Macs like the extremely capable 2013 iMac 27'' (and in 4 years, all Intel based macs), and the soldered NAND chips forming the SSD, so the product has a deliberate limited design life right out the box, with Apple have pretty much a monopoly on repairs.
Can't say I have any feeling of a sense of loss for Apple, because the cost of this will be put squarely at the feet of the logistics company and the poor bastard that was driving the vehicle. I very much doubt anyone at Apple will take any responsibility.
And if you look at this in the cold light of day, 'the positives' if all goes well, the main benefactor should be the consumer in terms of obtaining genuine Apple spares via non-official sources. Yes, screens and logic boards will be in the most part, worthless, but a supply of genuine Apple NAND chips to replace the built-in obsolescence of the ones soldered to the board, means maybe, a defunct Apple product might one day get a new lease of life from this heist and the cost of replacing the glass back of an iPhone with a genuine part, might actually be possible by a third party.
Re: It's difficult to know nowadays who is stealing from whom. nowadays.
Conversely, the inability of thieves to make easy use of stolen iPhones is one of the reasons that people aren't inconvenienced by thieves snatching their phones as often these days. You could have the Landrover Defender model where easily interchangable parts have left legitimate vehicle owners with panels missing because some sod has nicked them in the night.
Whatever. You rather undermine the moral arguments for Right to Repair by equating existing practise with actual theft and assault.
And another thing, the logistics company's insurance premiums are part of their known operations expenditure passed on to their client, and ultimately the consumer. That's the whole point of insurance, to turn an infrequent big expense in to an expected small expense.
Dare I say
"They weren't holding them up right"?
The one with suspiciously heavy pockets, thanks -->
Keep those eyes peeled folks...
Calvados?
I must admit, when I heard the news report on BBC Radio 4, I was mystified why national news was reporting the heist of fruit. Then it struck me when it was reported to be such a high value, I tried to think of what kind of processed apples (apple products) could get to such values, and came to the conclusion that it could only be vintage Calvados.
Doh!
Re: Calvados?
You've given me all the excuse I need to post [1]this Ronnie Corbett sketch . A classic. How he & Harry Enfield managed to keep their faces (mostly) straight I'll never know.
[1] https://youtu.be/kAG39jKi0lI
Re: Calvados?
HAHA forgotten about that. Brilliant!
Re: Calvados?
I'd rather have a pallet of Gala.
I do like those.
Especially from local farms.
Won’t they know where the stolen items are as soon as they connect to a network? And then turn it off.