Four Men Charged Over $1m MacBook Air Heist

It just goes to show the strength of Apple’s brand or pricing structure when criminals decide to plan to conspire in a robbery of expensive computers. Four men have been charged over the theft of approximately 1200 MacBook Air computers which have an estimated value of $1 million dollars (£660,000) and were thought to be in the process of being delivered to two high schools in New Jersey.

According to federal prosecutors, an individual by the name of Anton Saljanin was hired to transport the computers from a technology compound in Massachusetts to New Jersey on the 16 January 2014. Mr Saljanin reported to police that said delivery van had been stolen from a car park near his home where he parked it overnight. Sounds plausible, but for a few key details, firstly the gentleman in question claimed to have spotted the truck when driving along a highway by chance 27 miles away in Connecticut when out looking for the stolen vehicle. Police investigated this and ran tests before concluding that the truck “would not have been visible in the (Connecticut) Parking Lot to a driver passing by on Interstate 84”.

Further investigation by the FBI into Mr Saljanin phone records indicated that he in fact did not take the route in question when he claimed to have been searching for the truck; he was subsequently arrested along with his three alleged accomplices and charged with participating in a scheme to steal, transport, and sell the shipment of computers. It is also claimed that the four individuals sold at least a dozen MacBook Airs between January 2014 and April 2014 for between $500 – $800 dollars each, this is far below the retail price of around $1000 dollars per machine. Each person paid in cash and were handed the computer in brown cardboard packaging, this is certainly different to the well designed authentic Apple packaging.

What is evident is high-end tech products are a target for criminals with a propensity for theft albeit allegedly at this stage. It would have been ironic if Mr Saljanin had used an iPhone when police analysed it for phone data records.

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