At the mall in Alderwood, Washington, police say thieves hid in a coffee vendor’s restroom to dig a hole in a wall. Behind it was an Apple store.

436 iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches are the results of a huge burglary that took place at Alderwood Mall, in the United States, on Sunday, April 2. Nearly $500,000 worth of product went missing, but it’s not those big numbers that make the deal interesting. Asked by the Komo News site, the Lynnwood police recounted the improbable modus operandi of the thieves, who hid in the toilets of a coffee machine seller near the Apple Store in the mall.

By digging a hole after 7 p.m., when the store closed, they were able to access the Apple Store reserve, without anyone noticing anything. Amazing.

Good morning Twitter fans! Yesterday was a weird day…

1. Two men broke into one of our retail locations. Why? To cut a hole in our bathroom wall to access the Apple Store next door and steal $500k worth of Iphones🙄

2. Later that night on the way to the grocery store my wife… pic.twitter.com/DcUld6ULEd

— Mike Atkinson (@coffeemikeatkin) April 4, 2023

A very well-prepared flight

If Apple logically does not communicate on this regrettable event (which is all the more so since the brand can deactivate products remotely), Seattle Coffee Gear, the coffee specialist concerned by the incident, is both shocked and amused by the situation. Commerce officials had no idea how close they were to the Apple store, leading them to believe that the head behind the burglary knew full well what they were doing. An impression was confirmed by the police, who indicate that no face is visible on the images of the surveillance cameras and that no fingerprints have been left anywhere.

Thefts occur regularly in Apple stores, logically popular given the reputation of their products, but this is not the first time that an act of vandalism is distinguished by its originality. In 2017, the Apple Store in Dijon was robbed… with a pétanque ball. A much more French modus operandi.