$16,000 Worth of iPhones Stolen from Apple Store by Employee

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Over the years we’ve seen plenty of iPhone-related crimes as the device became more and more popular, but there’s always room for more strange ways to steal these devices. It looks like a current or former employee decided it’s time to get its own reward from Apple since the company is so successful and making so much cash quarter after quarter, and stole no less than 25 iPhone units worth $16,425.

The theft from the Northlake Mall retail store in Charlotte, North Carolina, occurred at some point during December 1 and January 11, and the known suspect managed to get away with 22 16GB iPhone 4S models, one 32GB iPhone 4S model, one 64GB iPhone 4S model and one 8GB iPhone 4 model. It’s certainly surprising the theft was not spotted earlier, as Apple has been selling quite a lot of iPhones last Christmas, and one would assume a batch of 25 missing iPhones would be easily spotted.

The incident has been reported to police only a few days ago, on Monday morning, which means it’s probably safe to say that most of those iPhones are already in the hands of new owners. According to the police though, the robber did have access to the Genius Room of the store, from where he or she took the handsets:

“The iPhones were stolen from the Genius Room located inside of the store,” a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report says. “The suspect did have access to the Genius Room.”

The police have not apprehended the suspect, but it’s probably a matter of time before they do catch him. We have recently seen police catch an iPhone thief after locating the iPhone he stole with Apple’s Find My iPhone app. However in this case Apple may have a harder time locating the stolen devices, since the feature was probably not active on these devices.

In a related case, a few months ago we’ve seen the New York City police conduct a large operation with the purpose of arresting those electronics retailers in the CIty that were likely to purchase stolen goods, specifically iPhones and iPads, in order to resell them in their shops.

Have you had any iOS device stolen?