(Credit: NY Post)
A crew of quick-acting thieves made off with $27,000 worth of Apple laptops and iPhones in mere seconds in a brazen heist that was caught on camera.
The four young men swooped into the Apple store Saturday morning inside Fashion Fair Mall in Fresno, California, and made off with 26 pricey products – as stunned customers and employees looked on.
Video from the store shows the bandits, all wearing hoodies and sweatpants, descending on two tables in the front and middle of the store, according to ABC 30.
Two of them work at lightning speed to slap laptops shut and rip them from cords secured to the table while another pair yanks out tethered iPhones, as terrified customers, including a little girl, duck under the table.
The group then takes off – their arms loaded with the pilfered goods — dashing past a crowd of frightened young girls and plowing into a burly customer who tries to block their escape.
The customer, in a white shirt and baseball cap, goes flying as the thieves knock him over.
“Various iPhones, the iPhone 6, iPhone 7 and 8, and even the new iPhone X was taken in this grand theft,” said Lt. Mark Hudson of the Fresno Police Department. “One customer stood by the door to prevent them from leaving but was knocked out of the way.”
Police are now hunting for the suspects who they described as four or five black males between 16 to 18 years old. They believe a getaway driver was also involved.
The suspects never displayed any weapons, police said.
Investigators are looking into whether the heist is connected to a similar robbery of an Apple store in Downtown San Luis Obispo June 21. Thieves in that case made away with a table’s worth of merchandise.
“There are other reports of other places, other cities in California, that have had these kinds of takeover thefts,” said Hudson. “So we are looking into [this crime] being connected to other crimes, at any other Apple Stores outside of Fresno.”
This story originally appeared in the New York Post.
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