Caught Stealing 15 iPads? Avoid Arrest by Telling Police You Were Testing Store Security.

Stealing Apple products in bulk is always a dicey proposition. Short of brazen daylight raids on the Knox Street Apple Store, which actually seem to be fairly effective, products made by the world’s leading producer of consumer electronics tend to be closely monitored by retailers.

But here’s a tip for would-be iThieves: just tell police you were testing the store’s security.

That seems to have worked fairly well for an employee at the Micro Center on Central in Far North Dallas who was spotted by a passerby yesterday afternoon shoving boxes from a trash can in back of the store into his car. “This individual found it suspicious because the boxes did not appear to be empty,” a police report says.

Indeed, the boxes were quite full. A couple of store managers, alerted to a potential theft, found the employee’s car parked by the Wal Mart next door. When they searched the vehicle, with his consent, they found 15 brand new iPads piled in three boxes.

Sure, they were Micro Center’s tablets, the man admitted, but insisted that he was doing the store a favor. He told the managers that “he had only taken them to demonstrate to the managers at the store that it was possible for employees to take items from the store without being detected,” according to police. He was planning on turning around and giving the iPads right back. As a show of good faith, he helped them carry them back inside.

Neither police nor his bosses were completely sold on the man’s story. They issued a criminal trespass warning prohibiting him from setting foot on Micro Center property again, which presumably means he lost his job, but he wasn’t arrested. Police took his information in case a detective needed to follow up and sent him on his way.