Employees and customers outside the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto on May 27, 2020. Photo by Magali Gauthier.
A criminal complaint indicates that more than $950 in Apple merchandise was stolen last summer from the downtown Palo Alto Apple store as part of a series of brazen thefts at Apple stores throughout the state that resulted in a loss of about $1 million in merchandise.
Last week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said eight people were arrested and indicted on multiple felony charges. They each face one charge of conspiracy to commit retail theft and organized retail theft, 14 counts of grand theft and a count each of special allegations of aggravated white collar crime and theft of merchandise valued at more than $100,000, according to a Jan. 31 legal complaint filed in Yolo County Superior Court.
The individuals allegedly entered the stores and stole merchandise in total worth about $1 million in iPads, laptops and other devices, Bonta said during a Feb. 9 press conference. The Palo Alto Apple store at 340 University Ave. was targeted on Aug. 21, 2022. The Pleasanton Apple store at 1 Stoneridge Mall Road was hit on Aug. 5, 2022. The heists took place as customers and store employees looked on.
Other thefts by the group occurred in Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco and Yolo counties between Aug. 2, 2022, and Jan. 27, 2023.
The person behind the Palo Alto theft was identified as Leo David Smith. The other seven defendants in the statewide case are Aron Thomas, Marques Fields, Michael White, David Nesterenko. Mikhail Moroz, Maksim Pazyuk and Rubina G. Yoder (Pazyuk).
