Thieves hijack truck in UK, steal $6.6M of Apple products

Posted:
in General Discussion edited November 2020
Thieves in the United Kingdom have stolen a trailer full of Apple products containing an estimated $6.6 million in goods that were in transit on one of the country's major highways.

Police UK Pexels


The robbery took place on November 10, on the southbound slip road at Junction 18 of the M1 motorway, Northamptonshire Police report. The driver and a security guard were attacked and tied up before thieves made off with the truck itself.

The truck was taken to the nearby village of Crick, where an operation took place to shift the acquired products to a second waiting truck and trailer. After abandoning the driver and security guard, the second truck was driven to Lutterworth, Leicestershire, before the thieves offloaded the goods again to a third truck.

While Police haven't advised of what products were stolen in the organized theft, the 48 pallets of products are valued at 5 million GBP.

The police have put out a call for witnesses and any other drivers who may have been in the area between 7:45 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. on November 10, who may have dash-cam footage of the event. People are also asked to speak up if they have been offered any Apple products in "unusual circumstances" or at a price far below retail value.

Witnesses are advised to call the non-emergency number on 101 quoting reference number 20000595599, or for those wishing to stay anonymous, to call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

The details of the theft surface shortly after reports of another organized effort in Madrid, Spain, where Amazon employees were arrested for allegedly stealing iPhones worth an estimated $592,000, by secretly putting them into specific orders.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    Jokes on them. Apple has those serial numbers logged on inventory manifests. One of them tries to turn it on, location tracking happens and it becomes bricked. 
    macseekerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 11
    The truck was taken to the nearby village of Crick
    I guess they are up Crick's Creek now.

    Does Apple buy insurance or are they big enough that they just self-insure themselves, like governments do?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 11
    Duplicate, delete. This happens so often: the website doesn't respond even though it posted the message. I see it happens to other people too.
    edited November 2020 viclauyycDetnator
  • Reply 4 of 11
    Apple products in "unusual circumstances" or at a price far below retail value.

    Finding any genuine Apple Kit at below their quoted price here is unusual. No retailer really dares drop the prices like B&H, Adorama etc do in the USA. Amazon drops prices of 'old' kit but generally only carries the base models.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 11
    The truck was taken to the nearby village of Crick
    I guess they are up Crick's Creek now.

    Does Apple buy insurance or are they big enough that they just self-insure themselves, like governments do?
    It may have been a retailer or customer/school shipping them. I’m not a logistics expert, but sounds like a lot of product in one load for insurance purposes. Insurance often requires smaller loads for expensive product to reduce hijack risk. 48 pallets would mean they are double stacked which I think many of Apples boxes are not designed for, but I don’t recall for sure. The price sounds about right for iPads to me.
    edited November 2020 watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 11
    Pretty pointless announcing this if they won't say what products were stolen
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 11
    The truck was taken to the nearby village of Crick
    I guess they are up Crick's Creek now.

    Does Apple buy insurance or are they big enough that they just self-insure themselves, like governments do?
    It may have been a retailer or customer shipping them. I’m not a logistics expert, but sounds like a lot of product in one load for insurance purposes. Insurance often requires smaller loads for expensive product to reduce hijack risk. 48 pallets would mean they are double stacked which I think many of Apples boxes are not designed for. Every Apple bulk purchase I can recall say do not stack on the pallets, but I don’t see these loads very often. 
    Very possibly true, but I'm still curious if Apple self-insures.
  • Reply 8 of 11
    The truck was taken to the nearby village of Crick
    I guess they are up Crick's Creek now.

    Does Apple buy insurance or are they big enough that they just self-insure themselves, like governments do?
    It may have been a retailer or customer shipping them. I’m not a logistics expert, but sounds like a lot of product in one load for insurance purposes. Insurance often requires smaller loads for expensive product to reduce hijack risk. 48 pallets would mean they are double stacked which I think many of Apples boxes are not designed for. Every Apple bulk purchase I can recall say do not stack on the pallets, but I don’t see these loads very often. 
    Very possibly true, but I'm still curious if Apple self-insures.
    I’m pretty sure they don’t in the states. Not sure about UK. If Apple was shipping these, I think this would be covered by insurance.
    edited November 2020
  • Reply 9 of 11
    BBC “The items stolen included iPhone 11s, AirPods and Apple Watches.”

    so could’ve possibly been a mobile phone network/ retailer. 



    Pretty pointless announcing this if they won't say what products were stolen

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 11
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,097member
    The just reeks of an insider job.  These thieves knew this was a trailer full of Apple products how?

    Soon the noose is going to tighten on them.
    ronnmacseekerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 11
    "on the southbound slip road at Junction 18 of the M1 motorway"!
    watto_cobra
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