Robbery, Gadgets | featured news

Masked and armed robbers used the New Year's Eve revelry as cover to rob the flagship Apple store in Paris.

Judge Stephen G. Milliken was waiting at the Gallery Place Metro station for a train Thursday morning when a youth snacked his iPhone from his hand. The D.C. Superior Court judge isn’t alone in having his electronic device stolen. Metro Transit Police said they’ve seen a spike in “snatch-and-grab” robberies of iPhones and similar devices. “We’ve had a great increase in the snatching of iPhones and iPads over the last couple of years, not just here but in transit systems across the country,” Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn said.

The so-called "Scarecrow Bandits" were a highly sophisticated band of bank robbers, but their reliance on high-tech gadgetry is part of what brought them down, a federal prosecutor said this morning.