Two men who scammed Apple for a total of $1.5 million over the course of three years have been jailed for a combined 13 years. The theft involved a handheld employee-only point of sale device called ‘Isaac.’ The Isaac is used to check stock and sell products to customers wherever they are. Each worker is given a single unit, and they carry it around the store to perform specific tasks.
The heist started when one of the men stole an Isaac from a worker at an Apple store outlet. He then waited outside the store while still being connected to the store’s Wi-Fi network and used the employee’s account to obtain thousands of dollars in digital gift cards. The digital gift cards were redeemed to the Wallet app to generate QR codes which were sent to the other schemer through iMessage. He then bought a variety of valuable products from other Apple stores. They carried out the same procedure across the country and stole a total of over $1.5 million.
CCTV footage later found them stealing Isaac devices found in multiple Apple stores. They were caught using their cellphones’ GPS before ultimately being arrested by the FBI. They eventually pled guilty to wire fraud. The scammers Syed Ali and Jason Tout-Puissant pleaded guilty back in 2019, while Ali was sentenced in October 2021, and Tout-Puissant was sentenced on Monday.
A press release from the United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas states that both scammers have been sentenced to a combined 13 years in federal prison and are ordered to pay $1.26 million in restitution to Apple. U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham stated the following below.
“If these defendants thought their million-dollar fraud would go unnoticed simply because they targeted a trillion-dollar company, they were sorely mistaken. The Justice Department will not tolerate fraud against any company, be it a multinational corporation or a mom-and-pop operation. We are grateful to our FBI partners for their work on this case.”
Apple currently has not responded to the convictions, but it would not have been long for the criminals to get caught, given that their steps were being tracked digitally.
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