Thieves smashed a car into the Apple Berlin retail store on Monday morning. The car used was also stolen and the thieves took with them display devices such as laptops, iPads, and iPhones.
Investigators said this robbery is not the first this year. There were six other similar cases recorded and these thieves were not amateur based on their organized moves. One case happened in Alexa Shopping Mall where 10,000 euros ($137,000) worth of electronics were taken.
“These are not amateurs,” Berlin police department spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said by telephone on Bloomberg. “We suspect that we’re dealing with a gang.”
The car that smashed into the Apple store was a stolen Opel Corsa. Witnesses saw the thieves used two Audis as getaway vehicles. They were only able to take 20 display devices with them because the Apple manager has locked up their inventory overnight. These devices were located at the entrance.
Police officials have warned other stores in the area to take extra security on especially that the thieves are very active this season. Apple has become a target in recent years of electronics robbery with some of them even posted in YouTube.
Apple has not released any comment about the robbery incident. Even the police refused to declare the total value of the stolen merchandise. However, workers have already begun cleaning up the place to have the store back to operations.
According to Apple Insider, Apple store being smashed by a car is not a rare event. At least two other stores were also smashed this year. The Lincoln Park, Chicago store was smashed early this year due to accident while another one in September happened in Temecula, Calif.
The Apple store in Berlin opened just in May after two years of construction. It is located inside Berlin’s most prominent shopping districts and used to be a theater house.
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