The recently opened Apple Retail Store located in the Dutch city of Haarlem was the site of a smash-and-grab robbery last night, reports Dutch news website NU.nl [Google Translate].
People living in the area of the store claimed to hear a loud bang in the middle of the night, which likely represented the sound of a car hitting the front of the Apple Store. The car used to ram the Apple Store was reportedly left behind as the thieves allegedly used two scooters to escape the crime scene.
Dutch Police are actively investigating the crime scene as the store remains closed to the public, but also states that only a small amount of merchandise was stolen. Employees at the retail location will also not be permitted to identify what was stolen until police complete their analysis of the crime scene.
With Apple gadgets fetching a high price on the secondary market, thefts of individual devices in muggings are common. However, organized robberies on Apple Retail Stores are mostly uncommon.
The Haarlem Apple Store opened on December 7 and is located roughly 20km from Apple's existing Amsterdam store. The incident also follows another smash-and-grab robbery committed at an Apple Retail Store located in Kurfürstendamm, Berlin in which thieves crashed an Opel Corsa supermini automobile into the store and proceeded to steal display iPhones, iPads, and computers before fleeing in two Audis.
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Top Rated Comments
How is this racist? New York was first colonized by the Dutch, hence their names carry over into our cities. That's just history, not racism.
Besides, everybody knows a Dutch Apple store has a crumb top. This makes it easy to break into.
Just stupid. But I guess the kind of people who do this aren't known for their forward thinking ...
Let me unpack this for you.
From the headline:
"Recently Opened Dutch Apple Store in Haarlem Hit by Smash-and-Grab Robbers"
Dutch Apple is a variety of pie.
Haarlem is a name very much like that of Harlem, a region of Manhattan.
I'm pretty concerned about racism, but your hypervigilance may have tripped you up here.
All you need is to sink stainless steel tubes (shiny to fit in with the store's design ethos) into the ground a few feet from the store front at 4 foot intervals and fill them with concrete and you'd stop most vehicles except the very largest - i.e a 40 ton truck might make it through, but it would probably destroy the entire building and render any equipment worthless in the rubble anyway.
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Given the average size of cars in the US, a Corsa would definitely qualify as a supermini.
I guess it all depends on your local perspective.