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Apple Investigators Posed as Police in New Lost iPhone Prototype Search? [Update]

Friday September 2, 2011 11:26 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Apple in late July had once again lost an iPhone prototype in a bar, mirroring an event that took place in 2010 ahead of the iPhone 4 launch. According to the report, Apple and San Francisco police tracked the device to a home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco and conducted a search, but were unable to find the device.


That account was quickly called into question yesterday after the San Francisco Police Department reported that it had no records of such an investigation. SF Weekly follows up with a new report today interviewing the man whose home was searched and suggesting that Apple security personnel may have posed as police officers during the search, a criminal offense. Alternatively, police officers may have improperly assisted in the investigation without properly documenting their work.
[Sergio] Calderón said that at about 6 p.m. six people -- four men and two women -- wearing badges of some kind showed up at his door. "They said, 'Hey, Sergio, we're from the San Francisco Police Department.'" He said they asked him whether he had been at Cava 22 over the weekend (he had) and told him that they had traced a lost iPhone to his home using GPS.

At no point, he said, did any of the visitors say they were working on behalf of Apple or say they were looking for an iPhone 5 prototype.
Calderón claims that he allowed the investigators to search his home and car and to examine a computer to determine whether the lost iPhone had been synced with it. Coming away from the search empty handed, the investigators reportedly offered Calderón $300 to return the phone and left a phone number for him to contact them if he could offer further information on the device.
As the visitors left, one of them -- a man named "Tony" -- gave Calderón his phone number and asked him to call if he had further information about the lost phone. Calderón shared the man's phone number with SF Weekly.

The phone was answered by Anthony Colon, who confirmed to us he is an employee of Apple but declined to comment further. According to a public profile on the website LinkedIn, Colon, a former San Jose Police sergeant, is employed as a "senior investigator" at Apple.
A San Francisco Police Department spokesman has expressed concern about the purported series of events, noting that the department will investigate the incident.

Anthony Colon's LinkedIn profile has been deleted but we've saved an image of it.

Update: SFWeekly now reports that the San Francisco Police did assist Apple investigators with the home search.


[ 340 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

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Avatar
chainprayer
104 months ago
Sir, I'm going to need to see some ID...

... No, not your license. Your Apple ID.
Rating: 36 Votes
Avatar
chrmjenkins
104 months ago
The plot thickens.



My theory is: we find the iPhone, we find Jimmy Hoffa's body.
Rating: 35 Votes
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iVoid
104 months ago

I'm going to email Steve and get to the bottom of this! Will report back after I get in touch with Steve. :mad:


Steve who? :)

You have to email Tim now. :)
Rating: 19 Votes
Avatar
chrmjenkins
104 months ago

Why would Apple, the most secretive company in the world, not contact the police who would make a police report?

hmm...

arn


Only one possibility: Apple is the zodiac killer.
Rating: 19 Votes
Avatar
arn
104 months ago

Arn, sorry for being Naive. But who is Anthony Colon?


read the article, and all will be revealed.

arn
Rating: 16 Votes
Avatar
arn
104 months ago

What's more likely is that CNET ran with some fictitious story without corroborating any evidence because they knew it would get attention, and ran a massively successful campaign to advertise for Cava 22 the ceviche bar. Maybe the writers of Cnets article are friends or were paid by Cava 22? Remember, they have lime flavored shrimp ceviche!


I think you need to read the story before knee-jerk continuing this meme.

arn
Rating: 15 Votes
Avatar
arn
104 months ago

THis is really sounding outlandish. Either a). whoever runs Apple security is a numbskull, or b). this story is false.

Seems very unlikely a company security department would go out on a which hunt for a prototype. Why would they not contact police first? Makes no sense and when things don't make sense, they usually are not true.


Why would Apple, the most secretive company in the world, not contact the police who would make a police report?

hmm...

arn
Rating: 15 Votes
Avatar
arn
104 months ago
Anthony Colon's deleted linked in profile

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/anthony-colon/18/204/b57 (deleted)

screenshot from google cache:
Rating: 14 Votes
Avatar
AAPLaday
104 months ago
This is getting crazy! Anthony Colon has removed his Linkedin Profile!
Rating: 13 Votes
Avatar
DrJohnnyN
104 months ago
New job opening:

http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=91080&CurrentPage=1


"The candidate will be responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple’s unreleased products and related intellectual property."
Rating: 13 Votes

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