Hot iPhones surface in Russia
Several thousand iPhones which were recently stolen from a Belgian warehouse of wireless provider Mobistar are now reportedly turning up on the black market in Russia.
A couple of weeks ago, the Belgian iPhone seller Mobistar reported that 3,000-4,000 iPhones had been stolen from one of their warehouses. Nothing had been heard of the phones since, and they had not been recovered, but it is now being reported that phones with matching serial numbers are showing up on the Russian black market. All of this has been reported through ZDNet.com, after being picked up by Cult of Mac via a report on iPhones.ru.
Cult of Mac said that “the stolen iPhones, known as “Europeans,” are being offered in batches of 100 at knockdown prices. There are no installment plans or credit deals — cash only.” The translation of the details from the Russian site is not the best, but it gives the gist of the story clearly enough:
Today, several vendors with a forum reported that they call the unknown people and offer at knockdown prices to buy officially unlocked “Europeans”. The minimum party is from 100 units in one-time payment without there installments or implementations. The owner of a shop at Gorbushka, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the windows of the market has already started to appear Belgian phones.
The iPhone is not officially on sale by any legitimate vendor in Russia, so an active black market exists in the precious Apple commodity. Interpol is said to be investigating at this time, armed with a list of the serial numbers from the stolen iPhones, provided by Mobistar. If the international police agency can find the phones, they could be confiscated and returned to the Belgian wireless provider, or kept as evidence against the perpetrators of the crime, if in fact any are arrested. It is also possible that wireless carriers could block the stolen iPhones’ International Mobile Equipment Identifier (IMEI) numbers at their telephone switches, making the phones useless.
Related posts:
