The New York Police Department ran an undercover sting operation recently on vendors and businesses accused of selling stolen iPads and iPhones, and came up with a whopping 141 arrests. That’s a pretty crazy bust — apparently undercover officers actually went out to businesses with iPhone 4s and iPad 2s that they claim were stolen, and when the business owners agreed to buy them, they swooped in for the arrests. The businesses were previously suspected of selling stolen merchandise, however — I am not a lawyer, but just sending cops in to try and sell stolen goods seems like entrapment to me.

Not all of the arrests were necessarily of the businesses’ owners; it’s possible that the cops used information given to make other arrests as well. But that’s a nice swath of (alleged) criminals to pick up. Apple’s devices make for quite a gray and black market around the world, and it’s good to see that the NYPD is cracking down on these stolen items.

NYPD makes many arrests in iPhone/iPad sting operation originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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