Four Men Arrested Over Million-Dollar MacBook Heist

An anonymous reader writes: In January of 2014, Anton Saljanin was hired to drive 1,195 Apple MacBooks, valued at over $1 million, from a vendor in Massachusetts to a pair of high schools in New Jersey. The day after picking them up, he told police that the truck disappeared overnight while he slept. Later that day, he told police he just happened to spot the truck abandoned in a parking lot while he was driving down the highway. Unfortunately for him, detectives quickly realized none of these things could be true. Footage from CCTV cameras and cell-site records for his phone indicated he met with his brother and drove to another suspect's house, where they unloaded the laptops. Later, a fourth man helped them sell some of the MacBooks, often at steep discounts. The four men have now been charged in federal court for the theft.

Comments

Doing the math...

[Dancindan84]

That's what? 10 Macbooks?

Re:Doing the math...

[BitZtream]

12, those were last years discounted models.

LoJack

[Intrepid imaginaut]

And once again another reminder that anyone carrying a cellphone is effectively transmitting their location to the authorities at all times.

Re:LoJack

[known_coward_69]

i think the fact that they are tracked by serial number from the factory along with all the components in there helps as well

Re:LoJack

[ShanghaiBill]

It amazes me just how many people (criminals especially) just don't get this.

In Hollywood movies, the criminals are usually brilliant masterminds, because that makes for an interesting story. But, in real life, most criminals are pretty stupid. There are plenty of risk-free legal avenues for an amoral smart person to get rich. For instance, they can go to law school, or become investment bankers.

Re:LoJack

[Registered Coward v2]

It amazes me just how many people (criminals especially) just don't get this.

In Hollywood movies, the criminals are usually brilliant masterminds, because that makes for an interesting story. But, in real life, most criminals are pretty stupid.

Yup. As my cop friends say, "We only catch the stupid ones." One detective I know told me whenever they had a breaking that match a certain profile they'd go find "John" and ask him if he did it. If he did, he'd fess up and ask how did they know? The say because the last 10 times we had a burglary like this you did, so we decided to save some time and see if you did this one as well. Another favorite was the guy who, good citizen he was, called in a crime in progress form a payphone. Trouble was the crime he was reporting was occurring 10 blocks away. He was surprised when the cops caught him in progress of committing a crime and told them they were supposed to be at a crime 10 blocks away.

book 'em Dano, grand theft

[Anonymous Coward]

...just think of the poor kids having to suffer with windows even longer than necessary....

Mac video surveillance strikes again?

[Antique Geekmeister]

I was actually wondering if they were reported by the vice principal trying to monitor children in their homes with "educational spyware" installed on the laptops, much like that previously reported on Slashdot.

                      http://www.pcmag.com/article2/...

Interesting names.

[Rei]

On or about January 15, 2014, ANTON SALJANIN

Anagram for "Anal Ninja Snot"

brought his brother, GJON SALJANIN, with him

Anagram for "A Ninja Logs NJ"

and CARLOS CACERES,

The ironically anagramed "Car case closes"

the residence of UJKA VULAJ

... I got nothing. Are we sure this wasn't a cat walking on the keyboard at the police department?

Re:Interesting names.

[wonkey_monkey]

Anagram for anonymous coward

A rad sunny moo cow.

The Real Thieves, Though...

[Bing Tsher E]

The real thieves are whomever specified and ordered all those Macbooks for school kids. Overpriced status hardware that will mean nothing to rooms full of impatient adolescents. The theft victims are the taxpayers. I'm sure there's an Apple sales rep involved and some school adminstrator who got nice swag out of the deal.

Why not more reasonably priced hardware? Chromebooks or even some 'doze laptops. Apple branded stuff, like Coach handbags is for snobby individuals, not semi-enterprise settings like a school.

Here's your TCO cue, shills.

Re: The Real Thieves, Though...

[malignant_minded]

Oh come off it. I bought tons of ChromeBooks for the secondary school I work at but there is no way a ChromeBook == MacBook. For my Python course I am not using any of the ChromeBooks because cloud programming is not a practical and the Python apps are OK but lack Python 3 in many cases and in both options I can't easily add modules and students need to agree to terms of service they might not be able to so we will keep working in the computer lab with Windows installs. I'm not installing crouton in dev mode for security and user experience reasons. If I had MacBooks I would be thrilled as it would reduce security concerns as ChromeBooks do and provide a tidy environment where kids could learn version control and other programming tools if they so chose as I don't have time to cover it in a four month intro course but many of my students will go beyond. Not every discipline needs that flexibility and ChromeBooks are great--though hardware quailty is a bit lacking due to the price--but they are not always the solution. You want to browse the Web, use an app, or write using Google Drive great get a ChromeBook but that is not all I expect from kids taking AP Physics or programming courses. You don't know what these MacBooks were for and it's New Jersey where some of the most affluent people in the US live. 80 year old dad and 35 year old mom probably don't give a shit that little Alvin got a $2000 laptop when they just bought him a BMW for his first car.

Re:The Real Thieves, Though...

[kheldan]

Actually, wasn't there at least one study done lately that shows that issuing computers to students hasn't improved their grades significantly enough to justify the expense, regardless of who manufactured the hardware? And that they're just screwing around on them instead of doing actual schoolwork anyway? If I'm correct then the 'real thieves' would be anyone who advocated buying any laptops for students in the first place. Also, virtual modding you down by one for using this as a vehicle for your personal agenda.

Re:The Real Thieves, Though...

[Solandri]

The real thieves are whomever specified and ordered all those Macbooks for school kids. Overpriced status hardware that will mean nothing to rooms full of impatient adolescents.

Let me preface this by stating that I think most programs to use computers in school are trash, and less effective than traditional teaching methods. Of course they make sense in specialized courses like intro to CS, but not for teaching regular courses.

That said, if you start with the assumption that having the kids use a computer is helpful, then "status" hardware will in fact mean a lot to the kids. Back in the 1990s I set up my aunt's household with a dialup Internet account. I picked AT&T as their ISP because at the time they had the most dialup nodes, best reliability, and lowest wait time for a free modem, all at a reasonable cost. When I visited the following week, I learned that the jr. high daughter had canceled the AT&T account and switched them to AOL (which was substantially worse). Because among her peer group, it was oh so important to have that @aol.com in her email address.

So if your premise is to try to get the kids to use the computers, then using status-symbol hardware is certainly one way to promote it. I should also point out though that Apple has had a very strong educational program since the 1970s. The computers in the "Computer Math" course I took in jr. high in the early 1980s were all Apple II+s. This is one niche Microsoft has mostly ignored, while they sought out higher profits in the business sector. Google is not ignoring it though, and a lot of schools are using inexpensive Chromebooks instead of Macs.

Re:The Real Thieves, Though...

[Ash-Fox]

Let me preface this by stating that I think most programs to use computers in school are trash, and less effective than traditional teaching methods.

My personal opinion is that schools shouldn't be doing this to begin with if they don't understand technology. They will only set false expectations and poor knowledge forward in students with it.

Re:The Real Thieves, Though...

[swb]

You have obvious proof that issuing computers doesn't make for smarter adults. The people who put men on the moon went to schools where advanced learning tools included paper, pencils, slide rules and a chalkboard. Electric lighting was their most valued educational technology. The laptop generation can't put a man on the moon and their big achievment is...Snapchat?

Issuing laptops to students is kind of the perfect storm of misguided intentions. The affluent parent wants to insure their kids have all perks and potential advantages. The middle class parent is afraid if their kids don't have laptops, they'll fall behind. The poor families either don't know what a laptop is or thinks they're being discriminated against somehow if they don't have one.

School administrators want any kind of efficiency they can get and chase the dream of less paper and automation (in addtition to loving big projects that parents like), so they like laptops. Teachers like anything that they think will get the kids to engage. School boards and social welfare actvists within schools don't want anyone to be left behind, so they support laptops for everyone.

Everybody wants a laptop, but teachers don't really have any idea how they make education better, often lack technology skills and are often hampered with disasterous, outdated software. For the most part, nobody's motivated by an idea about how they make learning better, they're just motivated to acquire an economic good for various selfish reasons.

Re:The Real Thieves, Though...

[mjwx]

Let me preface this by stating that I think most programs to use computers in school are trash, and less effective than traditional teaching methods.

My personal opinion is that schools shouldn't be doing this to begin with if they don't understand technology. They will only set false expectations and poor knowledge forward in students with it.

Forget false expectations for students.

There are people leaving school these days without basic knowledge of how to use a computer and are having to be trained by employers. Whilst I know that school shouldn't be strictly preparation for the work force, it should still teach basic skills. Hand Holding mac's combined with rote memorisation teaching methods ensure that people leave school with no idea on how to find a file using a file manager. I'm serious, I've seen support cases for "I cant find my word" because once it disappears from their recent documents, they've go no clue where to look.

It has become a risk to hire someone under 25 these days for any job that requires them to use a computer.