apple trailer highjacked UK
4 months ago
Published November 17, 2020 by

Crime watch: Highjackers tie up driver, take off with a trailer full of Apples

From “Thieves hijack truck in UK, steal $6.6M of Apple products” posted on AppleInsider early Tuesday:

Thieves in the United Kingdom have stolen a trailer full of Apple products containing an estimated $6.6 million in goods that were in transit on one of the country’s major highways.

The robbery took place on November 10, on the southbound slip road at Junction 18 of the M1 motorway, Northamptonshire Police report. The driver and a security guard were attacked and tied up before thieves made off with the truck itself.

The truck was taken to the nearby village of Crick, where an operation took place to shift the acquired products to a second waiting truck and trailer. After abandoning the driver and security guard, the second truck was driven to Lutterworth, Leicestershire, before the thieves offloaded the goods again to a third truck.

While Police haven’t advised of what products were stolen in the organized theft, the 48 pallets of products are valued at 5 million GBP.

My take: I think I’ve seen this movie. Doesn’t end well.

Best geeky tweets: ARMed robbery , M1s nabbed on the M1 and (in a British accent) No ARM done

7 Comments

  1. Adam Foster said:
    Doesn’t Apple “brick” any device reported stolen?

    0
    November 17, 2020
    • Bart Yee said:
      Another reason why thieves steal Apple products, “Its where the money is”

      Apple can brick or disable if they have the IMEI numbers of the devices assuming iPhones and iPads. But prospective buyers, or “resellers” won’t know this when they turn over money to shady sources of supplies, or they get shipped out of country to other black markets. The truck swapping three different times suggested an organized crime group, surveillance, maybe even inside knowledge of logistics, and with resources.

      If products are accessories like AirPods, Watch much harder to track but not impossible. Watch bands, other passive devices would be impossible to track.

      1
      November 17, 2020
  2. Jerry Doyle said:
    I reiterate what I said yesterday. Isn’t it interesting one never reads or hear of other brands of smartphones or tech devices stolen by organized crime. Apple is “gold” on the Black Market. That speaks volumes about Apple’s premium quality value.

    3
    November 17, 2020
  3. bas flik said:
    probably inside job. if iphones pretty useless because they are all traceble. if one pops up in the netwerk apple knows where the phone will be. but it happens to us a lot as well. always inside jobs by truck drivers or employees from logistic companies. they always end up being caught. now the box halved in size it will be worse. like bullions.

    1
    November 17, 2020
  4. Joe Murphy said:
    What if the thieves are after the parts, similar to stealing cars? Does bricking the product affect using the parts? Any thoughts?

    1
    November 17, 2020
    • Bart Yee said:
      @Joe Good point, selling them for parts is certainly not going to be affected by bricking. Seems to me though that they’d get a lot less if someone just wanted to break them down to component. At that point also, anyone who uses those parts and is an Apple Approved repair would get themselves in a lot of trouble.

      My guess is they try to get passed off to unsuspecting end users or to unscrupulous indie resellers.

      1
      November 17, 2020

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