Criminal mastermind celebrates iPad theft with a victory selfie

So you’ve just successfully stolen an iPad and are now pondering your next move. Do you A) Not switch it on and sell it for cash as soon as humanly possible, or B) Play around on it, while making sure to snap a few celebratory selfies to commemorate the occasion?

If you voted “A” then, congratulations, you’re already a smarter class of criminal than 19-year-old Ralphy Olivero of Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

Olivero was recently arrested for breaking into a car and making off with an iPad. His location was tracked down using Apple’s Find My iPad feature, after the iPad’s rightful owner logged onto their iCloud account and found it contained multiple iPad selfies taken by the thief.

The teen criminal was already on probation for selling stolen items, including a PlayStation console with 10 games.

While this is undoubtedly stupid behavior, it’s unfortunately not as uncommon as you’d like to believe. Last year, a post containing selfies taken by a group of iPhone thieves went viral on Facebook, being shared more than 100,000 times after being posted by the handset’s rightful owner.

In another story, two rocket scientists iPad thieves were arrested after uploading a celebratory selfie video in which they showed off $5,000 in cash, an iPad, laptop and other items they had stolen from an unlocked car.

Will criminals never learn?

Source: Sun Chronicle

Luke Dormehl

Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.