Police trick people into buying "stolen" iPhones, then arrest them

Mark Frauenfelder 6:36 pm Tue May 28, 2013

Here's Ted Balaker's latest video about questionable police practices.

If a shady character stops you on the streets of San Francisco and tries to sell you a stolen iPhone or iPad, he just might be a cop.

San Francisco Police Department officers are going undercover to peddle "stolen" Apple devices, and whoever takes the bait gets taken down (by five cops no less!).

"If they steal the phone but can't sell it, there's no market," says San Francisco Police Capt. Joe Garrity. "We're cutting the head off the snake."

Around the time the SFPD was cooking up its iPhone task force, The San Francisco Examiner revealed that the department had more than 1,000 unsolved murders and about 900 unsolved rapes on its hands. A year later, San Francisco Attorney General George Gascon, who was police chief at the time of the revelation, told a reporter he had "forgot" about his department's unfinished business.

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