![]() He then sat outside the same stores - still connected to the store WiFi network - and used the robbed employee's account to acquire thousands of dollars in digital gift cards. But unlike traditional checkout aisle cash-registers - as Ali and Tout-Puissant realized - the handheld Isaac devices are also stealable.Īccording to court filings, Tout-Puissant allegedly walked into Apple Stores "around the United States" numerous times and walked out with Isaac devices. Tout-Puissant and Ali found a far more profitable target: Apple employees' devices.Īpple's retail employees are equipped with a special machine called an "Isaac." The handheld device is a familiar sight to anyone who's ever bought something at an Apple store - it lets employees roam the store floor and sell products to customers wherever they are, avoiding the need for old-fashioned cash registers or check-out aisles. The Apple Store in Southlake Texas where Jason Tout-Puissant stole $50,000 in gift cards.īut all these schemers went for the Apple products on display. A Texan was jailed in 2021 for stealing $26,000-plus of merchandise in Arkansas, and was implicated in a string of other thefts from Missouri to Oklahoma. Across Manhattan in 2020, thieves tracked recent Apple Store customers and grabbed their pricey purchases when they weren't looking. Even in an era of online shopping, the airy, open retail spaces make an average of more than $5,500 per square foot, according to a 2017 analysis by retail estate analytics firm CoStar - almost double the amount that jeweler Tiffany & Co generates.Īnd with Apple's signature brushed aluminium products lying around on every table, the stores can be a magnet for criminals.Ī 17-member gang was busted in 2018 charging into multiple Apple Stores across California and grabbing merchandise before hightailing it in a getaway car, making more than $1 million before they were caught. The crime shows how in the digital age, traditional smash-and-grab robberies are being superseded by more sophisticated schemes - and how technology companies' own tools can be used against them.Īpple, currently valued at $2.4 trillion, has some of the most valuable stores in the world. They are awaiting sentencing in the coming weeks. ![]() The case has quietly spent the last few years winding its way through the courts, according to documents reviewed by Insider, and both men have now pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the Southlake store caper (earlier filings by prosecutors allege a series of similar incidents at various Apple stores). In a shrewd scheme worthy of a heist movie, they executed their plan using Apple's own technology - in particular, Apple retail store employees' specialized devices. ![]() The pair were part of a sophisticated, multi-year plot that defrauded Apple out of more than $1.5 million, US prosecutors have said. One cool and cloudy day in the Texan suburb of Southlake, Jason Tout-Puissant sat outside the local Apple Store and quietly stole $50,000-worth of gift cards from Apple.ġ,500 miles away in New York, his partner-in-crime Syed Ali walked into an Apple Store the same day and used those digital gift cards to acquire thousands of dollars' worth of high-end electronics.Īnd then, prosecutors say, they did it again, over and over and over. Two people have pleaded guilty to an incident at a Texas Apple store, and are now awaiting sentencing in the coming weeks.The scheme involved stealing Apple's employee-only handheld sales devices and sending gift cards to an accomplice, prosecutors say.Tech-savvy scammers figured out a clever way to steal Apple gift cards in a scheme that authorities says totaled $1.5 million over two years.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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