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Gang charged with $1 MEEELLION MacBook Air heist

US prosecutors claim fruity machines sold in unmarked brown boxes

Four people have been charged with stealing $1m worth of MacBook Airs destined for local school kids.

US prosecutors have charged the four with participating in a scheme to steal, transport and sell 1,200 of the fruity machines.

One of those charged is the driver of the lorry involved in transferring the devices.

The defendants are driver Anton Saljanin, 43 of Yorktown Heights, New York, his brother Gjon Saljanin, 40, Anton’s friend Ujka Vulaj, 54, of Yorktown Heights and a co-worker, Carlos Caceres, 37, from the Bronx, New York.

Vulaj and Caceres sold “at least dozens” of the Airs on or about April 2014, for between $500 – $800 per machine, prosecutors said.

The Airs were handed over in plain-brown cardboard packaging.

The US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, said Saljanin on or about January 15, 2014, drove a rented box truck to a tech firm in Massachusetts to collect eight pallets of Airs for delivery to two high schools in New Jersey. He took his brother, Gjon, on the trip.

The following day, however, Anton reported to Yorktown police that the truck had been stolen from a local car park in Yorktown Heights.

Further, Saljanin claimed he’d spotted the vehicle in a car park in in Danbury, Connecticut, from the highway whilst driving around to track it down.

Prosecutors, however, say that the truck would not have been visible at that Danbury parking lot from the highway, as claimed, while cell-phone data allegedly contradicts the route Anton claimed to have taken in his hunt for the vehicle.

Also, broken glass from the lorry’s window was found at the site in Danbury – not at the car park in Yorktown, from where it was claimed the vehicle had been purloined.

The Saljanins claimed they had driven from to the scene of the alleged theft from a convenience store outside Yorktown Heights.

However, prosecutors say video surveillance footage shows the duration of the detour corresponds with the approximate time it would have taken to drive to Vulaj’s residence unload the Airs and return the truck to the Yorktown Heights car park.

The four face a range of charges, carrying a maximum of between five and 10 years in prison for each charge. ®

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