We’ve all been there before: you pop into a retail chain like Best Buy, Walmart, or Target just to grab a few things on your way home, and you’re stopped at least twice by other shoppers because you unwittingly wore the chain’s signature colors.
While this small lapse in foresight may be inconvenient most of the time, dressing up like an employee worked quite well for a pair of thieves who waltzed into an Apple Store in New York last week and made off with 19 iPhones.
A man dressed like an Apple Store employee walked into a store in SoHo on June 1, took 19 iPhones from a drawer in the room, and handed them off to a cohort to hide under his shirt as the pair left.
The theft, totaling $16,130, isn’t the first of its kind in the city. According to Gizmodo, three people stole 67 iPhones from an Upper West Side Apple store earlier this year over the course of two hits.
In all three thefts, one of the culprits dressed in Apple’s relatively new employee uniform, which the company adopted in February 2015. Before that, employees wore seasonal uniforms that were phased in every few weeks or months.
Unfortunately for Apple, it seems this permanent wardrobe change has only made it easier for anyone—or at least these three folks—to get their hands on a regulation uniform and blend in with other workers.
At least we can rest easy knowing not all folks who misleadingly dress as retail chain employees have bad intentions.
H/T Gizmodo