The ‘stolen’ Apple iPhone 5 fiasco

Earlier this week we reported on the ‘stolen iPhone 5'. Since then the press have been active on the story, with some reporters claiming that Apple planned the whole event for marketing reasons. In the last day however, some publications are even saying that Apple impersonated police officers in the attempt to recover the lost phone.

Todd Haselton at BGR said yesterday “This whole lost iPhone 5 prototype story just got whole lot more interesting. According to SF Weekly, six investigators claiming to be members of the San Francisco police department descended upon one Bernal Heights, San Francisco man’s home in search of a lost iPhone 5 prototype that CNET originally reported had been left in a bar. The scary part? The SFPD confirmed the investigators weren’t police officers at all. Instead, it appears as though they may have actually been members of Apple’s security team allegedly impersonating police officers. ”

He since updated the story and the latest reports from the San Francisco Police Department claim that they did in fact assist Apple security with the search.

Lt. Troy Dangerfield spoke out and said that ‘three or four' SFPD officers ‘did not go inside the house' but instead left Apple's investigators to conduct their search. This seems bizarre to us UK writers, but perhaps the law is different in California.

Sergio Calderon, the man who Apple believed to have the phone in hand, confirmed later than only two people entered his home for a search and said “When they came to my house, they said they were SFPD,” Calderón said. “I thought they were SFPD. That’s why I let them in.” He said he would not have permitted the search if he had been aware the two people conducting it were not actually police officers.” (source SFWeekly).

Latest reports suggest that Apple investigators may have indeed been mistakenly seen as police officers.

According to SlashGear. “Attention has now turned to whether Apple’s investigators did, in fact, represent themselves – or allow themselves to be confused with – SFPD employees. According to Dangerfield, “Apple came to us saying that they were looking for a lost item, and some plainclothes officers responded out to the house with them … My understanding is that they stood outside.” The SFPD’s involvement amounted to having “assisted Apple to the address.”

To confuse matters further there are questions as to why the SFPD did not have records of the search available when the story initially was published on news sites. The SFPD said on Friday “we don’t have any record of such an investigation going on at this point.”

Kitguru says: The whole fiasco is rather bizarre and as far as we are aware, the missing iPhone 5 prototype has yet to be recovered.

Become a Patron!