Apple Crime Log: Miami Vice, iCloud Phishing, and Break Me Off a Piece of That (Stolen) KitKat Bar
AI-generated illustration of the alleged $2 million iPhone 17 Pro Max heist from a Doral FedEx facility
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It’s time to again take a look at the Apple Crime Log, a semi-regular feature where we cover Apple-related crimes and scams. In this edition: pro athletes get catfished with iCloud, a $2 million iPhone heist, and thieves break off a HUGE piece of that KitKat bar.
Miami Man’s Vice is iPhones
A 64-year-old man in Florida has been charged with driving away with nearly $2 million in iPhones, all of which were stolen from a FedEx facility in Doral.
NBC Miami reports that Jeffrey Moore has been arrested for allegedly taking 38 shipping boxes full of iPhone 17 Pro Max phones from the shipping facility, adding up to nearly 1,800 devices.
Two days earlier, the facility had received a call from a man claiming that his warehouse was “undergoing renovations, so they were unable to receive deliveries and they wanted employees to pick up a shipment.” On March 19, Moore showed up at the facility with “a photo ID badge on his chest and employee ID,” as well as a 20-foot U-Haul truck.
As the boxes were being loaded, the real manager of the company showed up and told FedEx to stop the thieves. However, by that time, Moore and an accomplice had “U-Hauled ass” out of there. Later that day, he was stopped in Alachua County, over 300 miles away.
Moore matched the description of the person who stole the iPhones, authorities said. He was booked into the Alachua County Jail before he was extradited to Miami-Dade. He has been charged with grand theft, conspiracy to commit grand theft, and organized scheme to defraud.
On The Internet, Anyone Can Be a Porn Star
Federal prosecutors in Georgia have indicted a man accused of running a phishing scam targeting the iCloud accounts of professional American football and basketball players. 34-year-old Kwamaine Jerell Ford posed as a female adult film star, reports The New York Times.
Ford had been previously convicted of “hacking into more than 100 Apple accounts belonging to athletes and rappers,” and prosecutors say he launched the phishing scheme while incarcerated. (Aw! He learned a useful trade in prison!)
Ford has been charged with nine counts of wire fraud, seven counts of computer fraud, one count of access device fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft, and a single charge of sex trafficking.
Prosecutors say the phishing scam involved Ford posing as a popular female adult film star, while also impersonating an Apple customer support representative, all to gain access to the athletes’ iCloud accounts. The targeted athletes have not been named.
Ford’s single charge of sex trafficking is because he allegedly used one of his online personas to “traffic a young woman and coerce her to produce hidden camera videos of commercial sex acts with unknowing individuals.”
Bad Guys Use ‘Old Account’ to Leave Woman With $2,100 iPad Tab
A Nebraska woman says she is the victim of scammers, after her identity was stolen last year, with thieves using an “old account” to fraudulently purchase an 11-inch iPad Pro.
WOWT reports Mary Bodell has been receiving bills for the device with ever-increasing interest, until she now owes $2,100.
An 11-inch iPad Pro with nano-texture glass was purchased last year, and since then AT&T has been sending the interest-growing bill to Mary and Bob Bodell.
“Never purchased one,” Mary Bodell said.
“I wouldn’t know how to use it anyway,” Bob Bodell said.
Bodell has “made a police report, sent in various government scam complaints, and filled out an identity theft victim’s complaint and affidavit.” But police have yet to identify a suspect.
After the TV station reached out to AT&T the carrier said it had “escalated” the complaint.
Brazen Thief Steals AirPods in Broad Daylight
On March 20 in Kawana Waters, Australia, a man brazenly stole a pair of AirPods from a boy in broad daylight. However, the entire theft was caught on video.
The Cairns Post reports the thief repeatedly asked the boy to empty his bag and threw one of the AirPods on the ground. The victim then informs a passing woman, who tells him, “You need to move on.”
Is Your KitKat Bar Stolen?
And now for something completely different (and delicious). Before you break off a piece of your next KitKat bar, you might want to check to see if it was part of the massive 12-ton KitKat heist last month. A week ago, KitKat announced that customers could use a special online tracking tool to determine if their purchased chocolate bars were part of the 413,793 bar haul.
It should be noted that the KitKat heist tracker was advertised on the official KitKat X account on Wednesday, April 1. However, the KitKat X account insists that the tool is for real and is not an April Fool’s joke.
I did go to the tracker page and entered a random 8-digit number that, of course, did not show up as stolen. So I guess the check is checking the entries against something. I’d love to see what happens if someone entered a number from the stolen batch.
More than 400,000 KitKat bars were stolen from a delivery truck going between Italy and Poland.
