MacBook Air heist: Four charged over $1m theft of Apple computers

Four men have been charged over the theft of approximately 1,200 Apple MacBook Air computers bound for two high schools in New Jersey. The computers, valued at over $1 million (£660,000), were allegedly stolen by a delivery driver and three accomplices earlier this year, before being sold on at a discount.

According to federal prosecutors, Anton Saljanin was hired to transport the computers from a technology compound in Massachusetts to New Jersey. On 16 January, Saljanin reported to police in New York that the delivery vehicle had been stolen from a parking lot near his home, having claimed to have left the truck there overnight.

Saljanin later claimed to have spotted the truck when driving along a highway by chance 27 miles away in Connecticut when out looking for the stolen vehicle. Police later concluded that the truck "would not have been visible in the (Connecticut) Parking Lot to a driver passing by on Interstate 84".

Further investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found that Saljanin's phone records did not match the route he claimed to have taken when searching for the truck.

Saljanin was arrested along with Gjon Salanjin, Ulka Vulaj and Carlos Caceres on Wednesday (2 September), accused of "participating in a scheme to steal, transport, and sell" the shipment of computers.

"From in our about January 2014 through at least in or about April 2014, Vulaj and a co-worker, Carlos Caceres, sold at least dozens of Apple MacBook Air computers," the prosecution alleges. "They sold the computers, which had a retail value of approximately $1,000, for far below the market price.

"Vulaj and Caceres charged $500 to $800 in cash for each computer, and handed over each computer in plain brown cardboard packaging."