The Fort Wayne Police Department Property Detectives were contacted by a representative from ecoATM concerning a large amount of suspicious transactions involving Apple iPhone 15s.
Fort Wayne Police Department incident report:
Amazon Employee iPhone Theft Investigation
Fort Wayne, Indiana (September 5, 2024) – The Fort Wayne Police Department Property Detectives were contacted by a representative from ecoATM concerning a large amount of suspicious transactions involving Apple iPhone 15s. EcoATM is a service were you can sell your phone for cash and reduce electronic waste. Those sales are documented and tracked by ecoATM. An initial suspect list was provided to Detectives and a thorough investigation using LeadsOnline as a tool, uncovered the following organized Amazon retail theft.
Omar Kelly (19 years of age) an Amazon employee and his brother, Amir Kelly (18 years of age) were arrested on 9/3/24 in connection to ten stolen iPhone 15s from Amazon (est. value $7,456); with six iPhones being recovered (est. value $4,280). Both were charged with Organized Retail Theft a Level 6 Felony.
Another Amazon employee (active warrant) and her boyfriend (active warrant) used other people to sell the devices to ecoATM. Employee and boyfriend, both also sold devices to ecoATM. A total of 154 iPhones sold (est. value $138,094) with 55 iPhones recovered (est. value $49,413). Both suspects currently have active warrants.
There were additional thefts and sales of iPhone 15s by other Amazon employees and charges are currently pending. The total estimated value of all iPhones stolen from Amazon by employees was $156,897.00 and the total recovered was $54,593.00. All of the suspects used ecoATMs as a vehicle to sell the stolen phones. EcoATM has been very cooperative in this investigation and records all transactions.
Amazon Loss Prevention, LeadsOnline, and ecoATM were crucial partners in this investigation, and without their assistance, this matter would not have been discovered or successfully investigated.
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