Thieves Dressed as Employees Terrorize NYC Apple Stores

Similar incidents occurred back in March when a store on the Upper West Side was targeted by Apple staff imposters twice.

A man dressed like an Apple Store employee managed to steal 19 iPhones straight from the store in SoHo.

Not a bad haul, but probably nothing like the pocket money that he will get for them on the street, or on online auction and listings sites. They dress up as Apple Store employees by wearing what passes for the official blue shirt worn by those who toil in the store. He then handed them off to an accomplice who hid the handsets under his shirt, and the pair then exited the store. The first time, the thief walked away with $5,300 in stolen iPhones.

A report from Gizmodo goes into detail that the people behind this incident knew their way around an Apple Retail Store quite well. They then just walked out of the store without being accosted.

Nobody noticed the two, and it was almost impossible to because the store was quite crowded, and given the fact that all Apple employees were wearing similar shirts, distinguishing one from another was barely impossible. Even without the logo, someone simply wearing the same or similar color blue shirt is likely to blend in, especially if it happens to be a busy day. This time a man dressed as an employee grabbed 59 iPhones out of a drawer at the Genius Bar and had a female accomplice transfer them to a duffel bag in the bathroom while a male accomplice acted as a lookout.

Three individuals stole a total of 67 iPhones earlier this year, and 19 more iPhones were stolen from a SoHo store last week.

It is puzzling why Apple Stores continue to be fooled by imposters posing as Apple employees, but speculations say that the company’s recent change in uniform code could have something to do with it.