We're a bit frightened by the fact that high-ranking political officials are told to leave their BlackBerrys outside in an unguarded basket during high-level meetings (really, it's "common practice"), but nevertheless, one chap who tried to take advantage of the situation didn't quite make it out undiscovered. During a recent political meetup in New Orleans, a Mexican press attaché managed to slip a half dozen or so BlackBerrys into his pocket before darting to the airport with visions of black market markups in his head. Before he could exit the country, however, Secret Service had tracked him down after catching him via surveillance footage. As it stands, the responsible individual has been fired from his post, but there's been no word on whether the US will take any further actions. Reevaluating the whole "leaving them out in the open" practice may be a good start -- just sayin'.

[Via The Boy Genius Report]

Make no mistake, we've seen some fairly boneheaded moves made by technologically-illiterate bank robbers, but the latest case involves a fellow who was quite the opposite of that. Yes, the 20 to 25 year male who decided to hold up an Alabama bank the day before his taxes were due actually did the deed without hanging up his cellphone. And there's surveillance footage to prove it. Quite honestly, we can't imagine what the conversation here would've been like, but at least he made the most of whatever minutes he had remaining as a free man, right?

[Via textually]

Apple's no stranger to having its wares ganked (a lot), but this one really has us scratching our noggins some kind of fierce. Apparently a couple of meddlesome 20-somethings working at a Salem, New Hampshire Apple store managed to scoot away with somewhere between 330 and 700 iPhones. After somehow stuffing that many handsets into a panel van / pickup truck / privately owned C-130, they seemingly sweet talked a single high-roller into snatching up their entire stash for upwards of $138,000 -- which could be a bargain (or not) depending on the actual quantity included in the deal, internal capacity, etc. Minutiae aside, both individuals are currently residing under the strong arm of the law (surveillance cameras are hard to dodge), but curiously, nothing is mentioned about the buyer who didn't find spending over a hundred large with a couple of average joes (who just happened to have an inordinately large amount of iPhones for sale) the least bit odd.

[Thanks, Scott]

While those in London can use SMS to actually find a lavatory, folks passing through Western Finland will be required to bust out their handset in order to relieve themselves in select public restrooms. In an attempt to curb vandalism, the Finnish Road Administration has implemented a system along Highway 1 which requires restroom visitors to text "Open" (in Finnish, of course) in order to let themselves in. The idea is that folks will be less likely to lose their mind and graffiti up the place knowing that their mobile number is (at least temporarily) on file, but it remains to be seen if uprooters will simply take their defacing ways elsewhere or actually excrete in peace.

[Via Switched]

In what might be irrationally described as a wave, rash, flood, or deluge, two separate cases of utter and complete phone theft have cropped up this week. The first concerns $8.2-million worth of T-Mobile handsets which apparently have disappeared from one of the company's warehouses. According to an internal email sent to dealers, someone made off with 36,000 phones (most of which were Sidekicks), and the telco is now in the process of tracking the devices via IMEIs in hopes of getting back the lost goods. In other thievery news, two potential Darwin Award World Stupidity Award recipients plotted to steal 300 iPhones destined for Hong Kong right off of the truck that they were delivering them on. Following the heist, the men quit their delivery jobs, purchased diamond-studded Yankee earrings and matching cars, and then were promptly apprehended when the hastily-wrapped reams of paper they sent instead of the phones were spotted in Cathay. Gold-plated hats off to you, gentlemen.

[Thanks, Paul B]

Read - T-Mobile gets jacked, around $8.2M in phones vanished like a David Copperfield act
Read - Two Baldwin men arrested in stolen iPhone caper

Sprint users (or corporations with Sprint-using employees) can now look forward to "24/7 laptop security through remote monitoring, location and locking if a machine is lost or stolen." Thanks to a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent, the carrier will soon be offering up the OmniAccess 3500 PCMCIA card, which features its own battery, a "small operating system, a CPU, memory and an SD slot." When inserted into a lappie, it "hijacks the TCP/IP stack, so the card can enforce policies regarding what users can download, no matter what method the user employs to connect to the internet." Furthermore, the card must be loaded in for the laptop to even become usable, and the built-in GPS enables it to be located (and subsequently wiped or locked) regardless if the machine it's in is powered on. Reportedly, the device itself will run you around $250 and can only be used with unlimited data plans, and the extra security features will tack on another $10 to $12 per month.

[Via InfoWorld / Yahoo]

If a burglar with exquisite taste somehow managed to snag a million dollar Goldvish, asking for just $185,000 for its safe return wouldn't be too far-fetched. Apparently, the mobile in question wasn't of the princely variety, as this particular thief managed to lower his asking price to a rock-bottom $200. The suspect, known initially through police paperwork as "Baby Boy," was lured into a trap after police tagged along for the exchange and arrested him at gunpoint. When Mr. Boy (later found to be Randy-Jay Adolphos Jones, which is only slightly better) was questioned, he just couldn't put a finger on why he blurted out the $185k figure versus something more reasonable, but hey, not everyone can be right on top of current market conditions, right?

[Via The Raw Feed]

We're quite aware of the mayhem that went on during the buildup to the iPhone launch, and while it may cross someone's mind to purloin the oh-so-coveted device just hours before it went on sale to the public, we can't imagine a Fox News microphone being an acceptable substitute. 'Course, we've no way of really reading the vigilante's mind, but a brief iPhone interview was cut even shorter by a random mic stealer. Click on through for the zaniness as it happened, and kudos to the reporter on not just bailing out while she had the chance.

[Thanks, Matt]

Stealing £3 million ($5.94 million) worth of mobile phones sure sounds like a risky way to may a buck, but if you're going to jack mobile handsets, you might as well swipe the ones that depreciate the least, eh? A crew of four men in Europe apparently agreed with that mantra, as they got up the nerve to run a Vertu van off the road with their Subaru and reportedly swiped a fair amount of handsets before darting off. There was no word on just how many phones were actually stolen, but we're sure the boys in blue found a fully stocked trunk after it located the crashed vehicle in Slough, Banks. Two of the four masked bandits were later captured and arrested for their part in the heist, but the other duo is probably trying to figure out how in the world they would unload hordes of these highly sought after mobiles without garnering suspicion in the first place.

[Via BGR]

In the latest edition of the 2007 Darwin Awards, it seems that a Russian man looks to be facing up to four years in prison for stealing a cellphone. Pretty harsh, eh? There's more -- the man stole the cellphone from a court judge where he has just been exonerated of... wait for it... stealing a cellphone. Perhaps this guy has a cellphone stealing fetish or something? Anyway, after a possible four years in a Russian prison, the smart money says he'll be changing his tune. At least this guy had compensated his earlier cellphone victim (she dropped the charges against him), but we doubt the judge whose phone was snatched will be as nice.

[Via Fark]

What good is a stolen phone that's been blacklisted from networks, and the nefarious individuals formerly responsible for flashing them back into use have been scared off by the threat of five years' jail time? Not much good at all, we say, and a new study suggests that the UK's new laws fighting phone theft may be extraordinarily effective. On request from the government, the country's big five operators have started blocking stolen phones -- often within hours, and a full 80 percent within two days. Add in the fact that a new law taking effect this week makes handset reprogramming (to circumvent blacklisting) punishable by five years in the pokey and limitless fines, and we suspect a lot of these small-time criminals are going to be looking for new lines of work.

Alright, so we're taking this one at face value, but according to an admittedly weird report in Asia, Guangzhou residents should be on the lookout for a clever pup who looks mighty innocent, but is reportedly a "hardened criminal." After locating the dog in a Panyu District home, the owner was surprised to see the mysterious creature cease playing with his daughter, dart over to his cellphone, and make a break for the exit. According to local police, it's becoming somewhat common to see "thieves training canines" to sneak into homes and swipe cellphones for crooks to resell. While it would certainly be easy to brush this off as completely ludicrous, the idea actually isn't that far-fetched, as an English Springer Spaniel is already on patrol in UK prisons sniffing out and retrieving mobiles that were brought into the jails without consent. So if you're strolling through Guangzhou, make sure that cellie is well covered, cool?

[Via Textually]

If you're down with the whole "swipeless" idea, but don't much dig the potential lack of security associated with it, Elecom's coming to the rescue in an attempt to put your paranoia to rest. The Skim Black I lineup of gear consists of a thin, wallet-based card and a not-so-elegant adornment for cellphones (pictured after the jump), both of which eliminate snoopers from jacking your precious information (or identity) by cutting off a reported 99.9-percent of radio waves. To be effective, the skim prevention card must be close to any swipeless cards in your wallet or pocket, while the bulkier SKM-K001 needs to be stuck on the rear of your mobile to effectively destroy the hopes of data thieves (and all stylistic appeal your handset previously had). Both units should be hitting Japan any day, and while the SKM-C001 wallet card will run you ¥1,260 ($11), the cellphone guardian will demand ¥2,310 ($20).

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Sure, time is money, and nobody has time to wait around to make a phone call, but two parents in Lone Grove, Oklahoma are exemplifying the bounds of being impatient by filing larceny charges against a high school principal and superintendent. Based on an estranged rule that we seriously hope isn't widespread, students are not allowed to have any sort of "wireless telecommunications device" on their person during school hours, and when a cavalier student's mobile rang in the midst of class, it got snatched -- for five days. Based on the "school handbook," officials have the right to confiscate cellphones for a full business week if a student dares to bring one on campus, and reports explain that the superintendent has no inkling to return the device a moment too early. While we can understand how hopeless the poor child must feel without his connection to, well, everything, we're hoping the charges lead to fewer restrictions at Lone Grove High School (and beyond) for everyone's sake, right kids?

[Via Fark]

We've seen some third-party solutions for this, but Samsung has taken phone theft prevention to the next level in India, adding a "Mobile Tracker" feature to its new SCH-S109 Hero low-end candybar. With its 128 x 128 black and white display the phone itself doesn't seem likely to turn any heads, but in the unlikely event it catches the eye of a hard-up bandit, the Hero will silently send out two text messages to numbers programmed in by the phone's rightful owner as soon as the SIM gets swapped. The text messages contain the new SIM's phone number, so even if you can't get the phone back, you can heckle the thief at all hours of the day and night. The Hero is dropping as we speak on India's Tata Teleservices network; if it's a commercial success, we'll hopefully have some happy endings to report from the other side of the world.

[Via textually.org]