Tag: THIEF

We have no sympathy for criminals who slip up because of sheer stupidity (like the guy who took a time-out mid-burglary to play around on a little girl's Nintendo DS). But, in the case of one 15-year-old thief in Wilsonville, Oregon, it was a backup security app that led to his eventual arrest. Shortly after the suspect broke into a couple's home and stole two Motorola Android phones, he used one ...

All you Mac addicts living in the greater Los Angeles area might want to watch your backs while visiting the local Apple Store. According to the Los Angeles Times, a group of burglars has been following customers from Apple Store locations and stealing computers from unattended cars. Surprisingly, these "follow-away" burglaries have occurred more than 100 times over the past year. The Orange ...

There's big money to be made from creating and selling imitations of famous paintings. And while counterfeiters are working hard to make the fake indistinguishable from the real thing, researchers are doing just as much to discover new ways to spot a fraud. According to the BBC News, a team of scientists at Dartmouth have created a new computer method that could strike a major blow to the ...

It's a good thing we don't get tired of hearing about dumb criminals, because the stories keep on coming. In the latest, a 22-year-old Bronx man was completely owned by an Xbox 360 (with a little help from its former owner, too). According to the New York Post, an unnamed kid whose console had been recently stolen noticed his Xbox Live ID become active while he was playing an online game on ...

Remember Matthew Maynard? He's the image-conscious crook who sent his own photo to a UK newspaper via text message because he was unhappy with the police mugshot they published. Just when we thought Maynard's vanity had peaked, it turns out the 24-year-old burglary suspect was arrested Wednesday while getting his hair cut at a Swansea, South Wales, barber shop. According to The Sun, a person ...

In about the time it takes to send a tweet, five masked men cleaned out a Marlton, New Jersey Apple Store in the wee hours of yesterday morning. It took about 31 seconds for the men to shatter a plate-glass door, sprint inside the store, and collect 23 Macbook Pro laptops, 14 iPhones and 9 iPod touch handhelds, according to The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). The only way they could've ...

Several weeks ago, brazen thieves stole 31 computer monitors from a Canadian man's driveway as he was preparing to load them for transport. In Minneapolis on the 4th of July, an even more audacious (or inebriated) would-be bandit reached through local resident Jesse Phoutthaphaphone's window and stole his laptop, directly out of the shocked Phoutthaphaphone's hands. According to local NBC ...

Everyone loves Macs, crooks included. From the New York Post, we get this story of Dwayne Stewart, a serial Apple store robber. According to the story, back on January 15, the ex-con Stewart got the bright idea to start following people leaving the Apple store on Prince Street in New York City's trendy SoHo district. He would then swipe their fresh Apple gadgets as soon as they were out of sight ...

You've heard of serial killers, but what about cereal thieves? That was the very sort of criminal recently terrorizing employees of a company called The Marketing Store in Sydney, Australia, according to the Telegraph. The company's staff would return to work in the morning to find their breakfast goodies eaten, the staff shower used, and some other signs of trespass. To catch the culprit, they ...

At least one in five Engadget staffers can attest: Car stereo crime was all the rage in the 1990s, and needless to say, we were all on the losing end of the deal. These days, however, larceny cases involving in-dash head units has dropped dramatically, and we've generally got no one but the auto makers to thank. Back in the day, factory stereos were downright laughable, and considering that most ...

If the shrink -- that measure of lost sales that typically go unaccounted for -- gets to growing at a faster pace than sales, you just might have a problem on your hands. According to Mark Fisher, EMA VP of strategic initiatives, that's exactly what's happening in some retail locations, though he does point out that having to tackle a theft issue is, at least in some way, a sign of heightened ...

A San Jose, California man who keeps having his mail and packages swiped from his doorstep has resorted to some remote sleuthing technology to help him solve the mystery of his disappearing deliveries. Romeo Roque, who lives in the Northwood neighborhood in the middle of Silicon Valley, set up a video camera to capture the postal bandit in the act – and the resulting clip seems to do just ...

Can't wait for Black Friday? Neither could two suspects in Virginia Beach. Reportedly, a crafty duo entered a local Wal-Mart late last week, with one placing a Samsung Blu-ray player in her cart while the other placed a DVD / VCR combo unit in his cart. Once that was complete, the two met in the pet section, swapped the unwanted DVD / VCR unit out for a Blu-ray deck and proceeded to checkout. ...

Not that we'd have any expert knowledge in the wide world of theft, but this just doesn't seem like the best way to go about snagging a new HDTV. At any rate, an undisclosed amount of thieves reportedly drove a truck (or large SUV... it was dark outside, okay?) into the front door of Los Tres Amigos restaurant in a small Pennsylvania town, broke the glass, ganked a 47-inch Insignia HDTV and "fled ...

If you really needed proof that the statement "crime doesn't pay" had at least a semblance of truth behind it, here's your sign. Known satellite TV pirate Glenn White has been sentenced to a 14 month stint in federal prison after pleading guilty to illegally rebroadcasting DISH Network's programming. As the story goes, Mr. White was doing business in Wagram, North Carolina under the name Wagram ...