Apple Robbery Ring busted, in part

California police announced the arrest and charges of a ring of Apple product thieves from across the state. The announcement came from California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who noted that they'd arrested 17 individuals who were then charged for their roles in a robbery scheme that seemed to target Apple retail stores over the period of several months.

The video you'll see immediately below this paragraph was shared by police officials several months ago. At that time, no arrests had been made. We're to understand that this is at least part of the group that took part in robberies of multiple Apple Store locations. NOTE that the man at the end of the video attempting to stop the robbery was an off-duty police officer, not just a random crazy person or Apple Store employee.


Robberies went like so: Multiple suspects enter Apple Store. Suspects, wearing hoodies with long sleeves and full-length pants, pull merchandise from display tables, removing loose devices as well as those held down with security cables. Suspects do not seem to threaten anyone, and in most cases get away without any injury.

It's been suggested by police officials that the alleged crimes took place over a period of several weeks and hit Apple Store locations for "the loss of over $1 million" across 19 counties in the state of California. Of those individuals for whom charges and/or arrest warrants were issued, 10 are currently in police custody – 9 in Alameda County Jail, and another is in custody in Sonoma County. Nine other arrest warrants were issued.

Attorney General Becerra filed charges for "conspiracy to commit grand theft" against "the individuals in Fresno, Santa Clara, and Alameda Counties." None of these individuals has yet been tried in a court of law. "Every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty," according to the California state government website of the State of California Department of Justice.