Forklift fondleslab 'fellas flee with vast haul of iPad Minis at JFK

Rather than waiting minutes in an iPad-mini queue, a couple of enterprising fellas took it upon themselves to hit up the airport for easy dough. Just like Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, these guys needed money - or a few thousand handily miniaturised mobile computing devices - so they robbed the joint described by Ray Liotta's …

[bill 36]

Rather than waiting minutes in an iPad-mini queue

Very funny, you just brightened my evening up.

Cheers i'm off to the pub

[SoltanGris]

Dumb and Dumber

First thing that popped into my head when reading this is to look forward

to a upcoming episode of World Dumbest Heists on TruTV (a cable channel here in USA)

featuring the idiots that pulled this off.

How long will it take Apple to find the devices once they are turned on and access a network?

http://www.trutv.com/video/dumbest/index.html

Pity, the criminals these days seem to be dumber and dumber. Course that brings to mind

the article the other day that asserts we humans are dumber than our ancestors from 2000 years ago.

.....

[Oninoshiko]

Re: Dumb and Dumber

not long at all, which is why they will probably be never turned on before resold.

that and "new in box" fetches more on ebay.

[DarrDarr]

Re: Now, they just need to find...

no kidding... I would rather have an iPad Max, with a 13 or 14 inch screen.

[MrIan]

Re: Now, they just need to find...

check out the wacom cintiq 24HD - not exactly as portable as a tablet, and you'll need a desk to put it on, but it is a thing of beauty. oh, and you'll need a PC close by. and before you ask it's about £2k.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Now, they just need to find...

Just bought a mini - what can I say - it's great. Super light and slim - great for reading books and pretty much everything else. Very fast / responsive as well.

In the house we also have an iPad 2 - so yes this has a smaller screen but it's still large enough.

[NoneSuch]

Apologies to Henry Hill from Goodfellas

"Now the guy's got Apple as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Apple. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Apple. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Microsoft, he can call Apple. But now the guy's gotta come up with Apple's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? F*** you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? F*** you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? F*** you, pay me."

[Anonymous Coward]

"Put the minis in the bag, and nobody gets hurt"

"And NO SEQUENTIAL MAC ADDRESSES!"

Seriously - do they have a way to track the MACs on this devices? If so, they can look for them in the wild, and work backwards from the person holding them, and find the fence.

Also, were Apple to just announce "Sucks for you, those minis will self destruct the first time they talk to the app store" that would sort-of take the shine off them, wouldn't it?

[MrIan]

Re: "Put the minis in the bag, and nobody gets hurt"

don't think the MAC addresses would be much use, there's the whole single subnet thing. As for the app store, they're probably already blocked on there by serial number - and when an attempt is made to connect to the store the public IPs should be logged, noted and passed along to the ISP to get the account holders info.

[Destroy All Monsters]

"They were challenged by an airport worker returning from dinner"

"What are you guys doing? Overtime? I'm calling the union rep!"

[Charlie Clark]

Extreme measures

Seems like Apple is going to extreme lengths to be able to boost the number of I-pad Minis shipped…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Extreme measures

Or do you mean they are actually worth stealing - Samsung PR would love this story about their iPad-a-like.

[Jediben]

Re: Extreme measures

Just some Apple employees going the extra mile to support their 'shortage of stock' rumours. Enforced scarcity = enhanced desirability after all!

[Alan Esworthy]

1978 Lufthansa job not the biggest

There have been many larger robberies in U.S. history than the Lufthansa job, and they've all been perpetrated by the U.S. federal govt. OK, that's arguable, but there's one very straightforward case that is easy to explain, quantify, and understand.

In 1933, President F.D.Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States". There were some exceptions allowed but as a percentage that amounted to very little. There are various estimates of the amount of gold turned in for the $20;67 offered by the govt for each Troy ounce of gold. The Treasury won't say, of course, as it seems we Merkins can't be trusted with that sort of information. I'll use the lowest estimate of 1.8 million Troy ounces (56 tonnes) although some sources say it could have been several hundred tonnes.

The robbery was two-part. First was the confiscation of the gold itself, albeit gold holders were paid $20.67 per oz. The second and most egregious part was that immediately after the govt got its greed paws on the gold they raised the gold exchange rate to $35 per oz. If it were allowed, which it wasn't, purchasing gold with dollars would cost $14.33 more per ounce than a few months earlier.

Do the multiplication and you'll find that gold holders had been robbed of $25.8 million - but that's in 1933 dollars. Using the extremely conservative (and highly suspect) Consumer Price Index price inflation figures from that same larcenous govt, applying the 1933 to 2012 rate of 1,680% to that $25.8 million means that the robbery of gold holders by their own govt would be over $430 million today.

So, that Lufthansa job was small change. It takes a govt to pull the really big robberies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 1978 Lufthansa job not the biggest

Well, that's done it, then - Roosevelt will never be re-elected now.

I can hardly wait until 2091 to see some nitwit post an outraged diatribe against Obamacare.

[Alan Esworthy]

Re: 1978 Lufthansa job not the biggest

Thank you, David W., for a giving us such a superb demonstration of Missing The Point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bigger still?

The Facebook IPO?

Someone ( and i suspect my pension pot may play a miniscule part ) is holding a massive loss.

[JeffyPooh]

"Pssst! Hey, you wanna buy an iPad Mini? Only $200."

It's still: 'no thanks'.

PS: Call me when you've stolen a pallet of iPad Mini *2*.

[JaitcH]

So much for ...

super secure Homeland security.

The biggest theatrical farce in existence, and likely the mist expensive, too.

[Fatman]

Re: So much for ... super secure Homeland security.

I know, what a joke!!!!

Security theater at the airport's passenger check points; while the cargo goes away unnoticed.