Apple Store Hit By 30 Second Lightning Robbery

Call it the Great iCaper of 2009: At 2:05 a.m. on 2 Sept. a crew of thieves smashed their way through the plate-glass front of an Apple Store in the Promenade Shopping Center in Marlton, New Jersey, and made off with 23 MacBook Pros, nine iPod Touches and 14 iPhones.

The five bandits used a large rock to gain entry, and then indicated to the security guard that one of them had a handgun. Once in the store, they systemically made their way down the store’s wide tables, sweeping up every device in their path. None of the notebooks, phones or portable media players included a lock to the table.

The elapsed time of the robbery, caught on the store’s security cameras, was 31 seconds. Depending on the options for each of the devices, the total take could have been around $37,651 (£23,041), or approximately $1,214 per second of high-speed larceny theft. In theory, the whole incident could have been prevented with one of those steel curtain walls you see lowered over certain storefronts after closing hours.

“Upon obtaining the stolen items the suspects exited the store and traveled south through the parking lot towards a residential development,” read a statement released by the Evesham Police Department. “Two of the suspects were observed wearing a black sweatshirt and a third suspect was observed wearing a red vest with a light colored long sleeve shirt underneath.”

Police spokespeople had no further information to share. According to local news affiliates, this is the second robbery to hit that particular Apple Store; in March 2009, two men broke in and stole eight notebooks and eight iPhones. There was no word whether that earlier incident had any connection to the current one.

The last crime to hit an Apple Store occurred on 3 July, when an attempted armed robbery of the company’s retail outlet in Arlington County, Va., resulted in an employee being shot and wounded.