In Moscow, a 27-year-old employee at a service center stole a large consignment of AirPods, totaling 376 pairs and valued at about 7.5 million rubles. He managed to escape, but investigators have already started a search for him. The incident is being reported by Mash, a Telegram channel known for updates on local happenings.
The channel notes that the theft involved a surprisingly rapid collection of headphones within a single month. Mash described the event as the largest AirPod heist in the history of Moscow, highlighting the scale of the operation and the coordination behind it.
According to Mash, the suspect had been employed at the Prometheus service center located near the famed Gorbushka market since November 2022, and began stealing in March of the current year. The outline of the scheme suggests careful planning: headphones were ordered quietly from a warehouse, all 376 units were located, accessories were acquired, and the worker left the job with the stock in hand. While the case moved toward police involvement, authorities intensified their search, reviewing controls, documents, and surveillance footage from multiple cameras to piece together the timeline of the crime.
Earlier reports mentioned a separate incident involving a 19-year-old storekeeper at the M.Video electronics stores chain, who allegedly stole 15 iPhones valued at about 2 million rubles to cover a video game debt. The juxtaposition of these cases underscores ongoing challenges in retail security and the pressures that can drive theft within large consumer electronics networks.