Huge iPhone heist hits Belgian warehouse - best local detectives on case for 'inside job'

Thousands of stolen iPhones will likely appear on the grey market in the coming weeks, following the heavily-planned theft of up to 4,000 of the devices from a warehouse in Belgium this weekend.

As reported by De Standaard and Gazet van Antwerpen, burglars used a fire ladder to climb the roof of the warehouse situated in Antwerp province. Proving their desperation for using Apple’s Apps, they then cut a hole in the roof, climbed in and ran off with between 3,000-4,000 iPhones.

The largest theft of the device yet, local police believe it to be an inside job, as the location of the hole in the roof is directly above that of where the iPhones were stashed.

So, if you’re a Belgian resident reading this and you’ve just put yourself on the iPhone waiting list, be warned these iPhones were on their way to Mobistar, Apple’s Belgian carrier. And Mobistar had already been having problems meeting demand for the devices.

"We have the serial numbers of the stolen iPhones block[ed] anyway so they cannot be used," the company said. That may be the case - in Belgium - but we can imagine some demand from grey market buyers in those countries in which the iPhone prices reflect badly against average per capita income: Russia, India or China, for example.

Given these new iPhones likely constituted Mobistar's Christmas season stock, this could mean an iPhone-free holiday season for hapless Belgian iPhone-using-wannabes.

Via: Apple 2.0

(Illustration: Well-known fictional Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot).