What a haul: 100 handsets in a single backpack, found after festival-goers at Coachella trained the "Find My iPhone" app on their missing gadgets.
Reinaldo De Jesus Henao, 36, was busted after several concert-goers activated the “Find My Phone” feature on their lost smartphones and noticed that the signals led them directly to him. The ordeal was several days in the making and, according to the Indio Police Department, it took an equal effort by authorities and music fans to catch the prolific smartphone bandit.
“I noticed some chatter on social media about phones disappearing on Reddit,” said Indio Police Sergeant Dan Marshall in an interview with Gizmodo. “One of the common threads [among Reddit posters] was that they were all losing their phones at the Sahara tent.”
There's something funny about a crowd of marks so distracted and unware of their surroundings that a thief could work a hundred people before being caught by a computer program.
Photos: Indio Police Department, composited by Gizmodo. Read the rest
In the Bronx (and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere) when your belongings are seized as "evidence," it can be impossible to ever get them back, even if you're never charged with a crime. Read the rest
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several 'Electronic Recovery and Access to Data' devices to install in police cruisers for seizing funds from prepaid debit cards during roadside arrests. Read the rest
“Hi wyclef. As a young songwriter myself, I have a question for you. What's a good fake charity I could start up to rob people of money who really need it? Thanks so much.” Read the rest
If your car has a proximity-based ignition fob that lets you start the engine without inserting a key, thieves on the street in front of your house can use an amp to detect its signal from your house and relay it to the car, getting away clean. Read the rest
A Delaware man was arrested this week for allegedly stealing $357,000 worth of human skin from the Philadephia hospital where he worked. What was done with the grafts, taken between November 2011 and July 2013, remains a mystery.
Gary Dudek, 54, was charged with theft and tampering with records after officials at Mercy Philadephia Hospital noticed that the skin was missing. Dudek worked as a sales representative for regenerative medicine company Organogenesis, reports NBC News. According to investigators, Dudek abused an "open purchase order" to make unauthorized orders for skin that were billed to Mercy.
Surveillance footage recorded Dudek taking the grafts and placing them in his car, but his lawyer says the hospital has yet to prove his client did anything wrong.
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Simple Misfits conducted a test. They had a white guy spend 30 minutes ostentatiously trying to break into a car. Everyone ignored him, including a passing police officer. Then they had a black guy do the same th—-LET'S SEE YOUR FUCKING HANDS, GET UP AGAINST THE WALL. [via Gawker] Read the rest
To deter theft, shoe stores put only one of a pair of shoes on display. Crooks, however, have them beaten: they simply hunt for the same pair in two stores, each with a different foot on the shelf. [NYPost] Read the rest
