crime

Oscar magnet Killers of the Flower Moon returns to theaters for Apple victory lap

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After landing 10 Academy Award nominations, Apple’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” will be re-released in theaters for a limited theatrical run beginning Friday, January 26.
After 10 Academy Award nominations, “Killers of the Flower Moon” returns to theaters beginning Friday, January 26. From left, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese.
Photo: Apple TV+

After Killers of the Flower Moon attracted 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Apple and Paramount Pictures agreed to rerelease the historical crime drama in theaters starting Friday.

The film, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by him and Eric Roth, will see a limited run in 1,000+ locations worldwide, Apple said.

New doc takes closer look at John Lennon’s killer [Apple TV+ trailer]

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Trailer for
Lots of information from various sources plus exclusive interviews shed light on the music icon's murder.
Photo: Apple TV+

Exclusive interviews with eyewitnesses to John Lennon’s murder, unseen crime-scene photos and discussions with experts — including the psychiatrist who first assessed confessed murderer Mark David Chapman — shed light on the music icon’s killing, according to a new trailer Apple TV+ dropped Tuesday for the documentary series John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial.

The three-part series, narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Kiefer Sutherland, debuts on Apple TV+ December 6.

Why walking the streets of NYC with 300 iPhones is a bad idea

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Fifth Avenue Apple Store
Muggers stole 300 iPhones near the famous Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York City.
Photo: Apple

A man was robbed of 300 iPhones he’d just purchased at the famous Apple store on Fifth Avenue early Monday. He walked out of the store and was soon assaulted by a pair of criminals who drove off with a bag carrying $95,000 worth of handsets.

It could be worse, though – that was just one of the three bags full of Apple merchandise the New York City man was carrying.

Aussie cops bust teen for allegedly stealing $42,000 in Apple computers

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Canberra Centre
The Apple Store in Canberra Centre was burglarized by some fairly incompetent thieves.
Photo: Apple

A couple of scofflaws broke into an Australian Apple Store and made of with thousands of dollars in computers. But the hapless burglars — allegedly including a 16-year-old boy — were soon tracked down by police.

They got caught because they apparently made nearly every possible mistake.

Watch new Apple TV+ comedy The Afterparty for free on YouTube

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Will you take the bait and watch the first episode for free?
Will you take the bait and watch the first episode for free?
Photo: Apple TV+

For the first time ever, Apple TV+ has offered the first episode of an Apple Original series — the crime comedy The Afterparty — on YouTube, where you can watch it in full for free.

That’s a promotional angle we haven’t seen before from the Cupertino tech giant. But will it work?

Mugger used stolen iPhone to record himself hours after theft

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Handcuffs
This is just creating evidence against yourself.
Photo: Bill Oxford/Unsplash CC

Question: When is the front-facing FaceTime camera on an iPhone more trouble than it’s worth? Answer: When you’re a thief who has just stolen an iPhone and, by using it, you’re recording video evidence against yourself.

This is one of the presumably many mistakes made by 21-year-old Kairo Theophilus-Reid. Theophilus-Reid recently appeared in the UK’s Swindon Crown Court, charged with a 2019 mugging of a younger teen’s iPhone 7.

He was arrested alongside fellow mugger Charlie Graham, and was found to have used the iPhone to record video of the pair in a restaurant hours after the incident.

Man allegedly uses iPhone to track victim’s car prior to robbery-murder

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The Find My app has been hiding a secret.
Criminals used the iPhone's tracking capabilities to commit a robbery.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

A Florida man allegedly used an iPhone as a makeshift tracking device, attaching it with magnets to the car of a man he intended to rob, then using it to follow him to a party at a nearby apartment. Suspect Derrick Maurice Herlong and an unnamed accomplice then robbed the man and fatally shot another person, Orlando police said.

Apple Watch heart monitor provides evidence in dramatic stabbing case

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Apple Watch alerts user of irregular heart rhythms in sleep
Your Apple Watch is always monitoring your heart. Usually that’s a good thing.
Photo: Apple

A Michigan man demonstrates why you should take off your Apple Watch before committing a crime. Even when you’re faking one.

Sean Sammit claims he was attacked outside the synagogue where he works, but the heart rate monitor in his wearable shows something different.

‘Find my iPad’ helps track down stolen cop’s gun

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The screen really is beautiful.
Note to self: Don't steal stuff from cops.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The “Find my iPad” feature on an Apple tablet helped cops track down the thieves responsible for taking a police deputy’s gun and tactical gear.

The app let officers find the stolen goods, in addition to other items relating to nearby burglaries, at a home in Cape Coral, Florida.

Crook steals $6 million worth of Apple gear using company credit card

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iPhone
The crime went unnoticed for several years.
Photo: Jim Merithew

There have, unfortunately, been plenty of scams involving stolen or misappropriated Apple products due to their high resale value.

However, few clock up the kind of quantities revealed in a report about a five-year scam. It involved an accounting manager for a software company. Over several years, Nadia Minetto spent upward of $6 million on iPhones and iPads using a company credit card. These Apple devices were then sold, before Minetto was ultimately caught.

iPhone stops arrow en route to user’s head

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iPhone stops arrow
Here's one man's tip on using the iPhone.
Photo: New South Wales police

The iPhone has made news for stopping bullets. A man in Australia discovered his iPhone was durable enough to stop an arrow aimed at his head.

The man was under attack in his driveway by an acquaintance with a bow and arrow in the town of Nimbin in New South Wales. The victim raised his iPhone to get a picture of his attacker when an arrow struck and penetrated the handset.

Inside Apple’s billion-dollar war on repair fraud

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Cult of Mac's buyback program pays good money for your gear, even broken ones.
Chinese iPhone fraud involved removing components from devices then deliberately breaking them so Apple would replace the handset.
Photo: Warren R.M. Stuart/Flickr CC

Fraudulent iPhone repair claims are big business in China. To the point where about 60 percent of the handsets being repaired under warranty in that country were part of scams.

Apple has had to make draconian efforts to even slow the rate at which Chinese criminal gangs are stealing from it.

Palo Alto Apple Store robbed twice in less than 12 hours

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Tim Cook
Tim Cook recently showed up at the Palo Alto Apple Store to greet customers.
Photo: CNBC

The Apple Store in downtown Palo Alto was robbed twice in 12 hours over the weekend, as the Californian Apple Store crime spree continues.

In the first instance, a gang of eight males entered the store after 7pm on Saturday, and began snatching iPhones and other devices, before fleeing in multiple vehicles. In the early hours of Sunday morning, the store’s glass doors were then shattered with rocks, and more products were taken.

Apple Store robbery suspect caught by security

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Apple Store Santa Rosa Plaza1
The location of the Apple Store in question.
Photo: Apple

The string of Apple Store robberies in California continued over the weekend — but, on this occasion, everything didn’t go quite as planned for the thieves.

As is becoming routine at this point, a gang of thieves (six in this case) ran into an Apple Store in California’s Santa Rosa Plaza shopping center, and started snatching devices from the stands. However, while five got away with their stolen goods, one was tackled to the ground by mall security and two good samaritans.

Grab-and-run thieves plague multiple Apple Stores

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Thieves grab MacBooks from an Apple Store
Two brazen thieves grabbed thousands of dollars worth of MacBooks from a California Apple Store.
Screenshot: CBS New York/Apple

Four teens in hoodies brazenly snatched a bunch of MacBooks and iPhones from an Apple Store in California this weekend. The crime is very similar to one committed in New York last week.

The brazen thefts took place so close together it’s not impossible the second was inspired by the first.

Hacker hacks iPhone hacking company’s secret hacks

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iphone
They say turnabout is fair play, but iPhone users are caught in the middle when iOS hacking tools are stolen.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Israel’s NSO Group makes a business of hacking iPhones and Android devices.  In a reversal of roles, it was hacked by one of its own employees and valuable intellectual property was stolen.

While its tempting to lean back an enjoy this company’s discomfiture, the stolen property was NSO’s phone hacking tools, which were then offered on the dark web.

iPhone X scalper gets in violent scrape

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iPhone X theft
This LetGo app ad for an iPhone X attracted a would-be thief in Georgia.
Photo: WSB-TV

Another new iPhone is on the streets and it’s the type of event when police brace themselves for a spike in thefts and assaults. So it was only a matter of time before the iPhone X would work its way into a crime news headline.

A man in Georgia suffered a broken collarbone after wrestling with a thief who ran off with an iPhone X he was trying to resell.

PC World worker charged with stealing $30,000 of Apple gear

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MacBook Pro
MacBooks were among the stolen items.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

An employee of PC World, a U.K.-based computer superstore, has admitted to stealing 27,000 euros ($30,000) worth of Apple products from his workplace. Oh, the irony!

21-year-old Eoin Giles of Dublin, Ireland, pleaded guilty to stealing 21 MacBooks, six Apple Watches, and seven iPads Pros, and then selling them on. Giles described it as a “stupid” attempt to make money.

Palo Alto Apple store targeted by ‘ram-raider’ thieves

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apple store
Not the correct place to park your car.
Photo: Apple

The Apple store in Palo Alto, California, suffered a brazen attack when a group of thieves in a rented SUV “ram-raided” the store early Sunday morning.

The burglars drove their vehicle at high speed into the 40-foot glass window at the front of the store, then climbed through the hole it had made. They stole iPhones, Macs and other devices before fleeing.

New York district attorney calls for federal law to unlock seized iPhones

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iPhone 7 back
Law enforcement officials still want Apple to hack the iPhone.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance wants the Trump administration to help create federal legislation requiring Apple and Google to remove default encryption from their smartphones.

The recommendation comes from the DA office’s second report on Smartphone Encryption and Public Safety, presented by Vance at the opening of the Manhattan DA’s new cyberlab. New York County is currently sitting on 423 iPhones it can’t break into, even with a warrant, so the DA’s office is pushing for change.

Touch ID could record prints to catch iPhone thieves

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Touch ID
Sorry, crooks!
Photo: Apple

Everyone points and laughs when dimwitted thieves got caught after taking identifying selfies with stolen iPhones or iPads.

However, in its quest to help crack down on Apple-related crime, Apple may go even further by using its Touch ID fingerprint sensor to record the fingerprints of would-be iOS thieves — at least according to a newly-published patent application update.