Who is stealing everyone's Macs?

Is a Mac theft ring at work, or is it just a burglary phenomenon covering lots of high tech expensive stuff?

A friend had his one-month-old 27-inch iMac stolen from his house in Westmere, Auckland. It's a mild-mannered suburb, orderly and close to town. Replaced by the family's insurance policy, it was stolen a second time just a few days later.

Now there's a beefed up alarm system, armour glass – and they're awaiting the delivery of his third iMac. And a large dog.

Just bad luck, I thought. While it may have been unwise to place the replacement in exactly the same spot, well hell, you should be able to put your computer wherever you want in your own home, right?

But then I heard of another Mac (a MacBook Pro laptop) stolen from Birkenhead, also from a house break-in, and along with some musical equipment.

And then I heard of another Mac theft in Birkenhead; this time from the police.

So I started wondering whether there's a Mac theft ring working away, or whether it's just a burglary phenomenon covering lots of high tech expensive stuff, or whether it's not a blip at all, but just a coincidence that I heard of these in the same short, four-week period.

I therefore talked to insurance assessors, the Police National Headquarters, the North Shore police and also with the Avondale Police Intelligence Department.

Policeman on the beat Harry Wu said "Personally I don't think there is a Mac theft ring."

He thinks that in most domestic burglary cases, it is very common that a laptop or a computer is stolen since most burglars target items such as laptops, cell phones, jewellery and cash. "These are what we call 'hot items'."

They're high value and (except for iMacs) highly portable. And they're not sold in pubs any more either – thanks to online retailing, that's a thing of the past.

But Wu conceded that items like Apple's iMac, iPhone and iPods are always find market demand. "These items are popular these days and they are easy to get rid of by the offenders."

Officer Wu always encourages people to take pictures of items and record their serial numbers. He says to email them to yourself, so that if something happens you still have the information (presumably with your ISP – you can retrieve it via webmail). "Don't leave your laptop or valuables where they can be easily seen through the window or near a window."

He recommended visiting a site put up by the NZ police called Reducing the burglar's opportunities.

Wu also recommended joining Neighbourhood Support, or forming a group in your street if there isn't one already.

In the case of one of the Birkenhead thefts, the victims found out there had been several thefts in the street over the preceding weeks but the information had not been passed around – if they had been in a Neighbourhood Support group, they would have known. (The thefts happened in broad daylight with the neighbours home but the thieves were pretty good at keeping their heads – and sounds – down.)

This was a particularly upsetting case – the owner had just returned here from overseas with his family and was in the throes of relocating his successful business back in New Zealand. The thefts meant he had to return overseas to keep on working.

But all burglaries are upsetting – the bloke who had his 27-inch iMac stolen also lost it in broad daylight in a smash-and-grab raid while he wasn't home.

It was over in seconds, despite two sets of neighbours responding immediately. But the police (who responded quickly) actually told him that even if they caught the perpetrators, they would probably simply not fulfil their bail conditions, steal another car and offend again. (I admit this seems a pretty incredible thing to tell the shaken victim of a crime.)

But the second theft happened at 4am when the couple was home, following the exact same pattern.

Imagine sleeping at that time of the morning and being awoken by the window exploding and tyres squealing. It's pretty hard to feel safe after that, although they have now taken stringent measures to prevent it happening again.

Insurance assessors agree with Police Officer Wu; they also reckon there's no specific Apple-badged targeting by burglars going on. But some of the assessors and some of the police bases I spoke to didn't really differentiate between Apple and non-Apple branded laptops and equipment.

(Although one police officer told me "yeah, they're pretty cool, aren't they? I've been thinking of getting one myself.")

If you have an iPhone and an Apple MobileMe subscription, turn on Find My Phone – full instructions are on Apple's website.

You can also insure an iPhone (or other handset) via Vodafone NZ – it costs just $11.19 extra a month including GST regardless of the value of your phone.

Vodafone recommends it for anyone whose handset costs more than $300, but it's not available for prepay mobiles.

There is no establishment fee for a 'phoneInsure' policy and your monthly premiums are charged to your Vodafone account – just call 777 from your cell to set it up, or 0800 800 021 from a landline.

Insurance assessors I spoke to had similar advice to Officer Wu: record serial numbers, don't have expensive devices visible through road-facing windows of your home, never leave iPods or cameras in cars (cameras often don't even qualify for insurance if stolen from parked cars, by the way), join Neighbourhood Support, and leave a radio on when you go out so potential thieves think someone's in the house.

Thieves hate nothing more than finding someone home!

I'd hate nothing more than my Apple stuff being stolen.

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com