Hi-tech thieves take the shine off Apple Mac

APPLE Macintosh computers have become favourites with a new group of enthusiasts - thieves. So much Apple Mac equipment used by the newspaper, graphic design and publishing industries is being stolen that the problem is to be raised at national police level.

The thieves often steal only the newest and most valuable equipment. They are targeting companies which not only have Apple Mac computers but also use expensive add-on screens, scanners and peripherals. The computers themselves, often contained in 'pizza-box' casings, are small, light and extremely valuable, retailing at up to pounds 3,000 each. The other equipment is heavier and less mobile, but the thieves arrive mob-handed and with transport.

Recent victims have included Tonight, a free newspaper planned for London, which lost pounds 100,000-worth of the new Power Mac computers and their peripherals within days of their introduction on to the British market. In April, Haymarket Magazines lost 15 computers in a follow-up to a raid six months earlier in which pounds 250,000-worth of equipment was stolen.

Other victims include the Bury Free Press in Bury St Edmunds, which lost pounds 150,000- worth of computers, and The Big Issue, the magazine for the homeless, which lost its sole production machine, an Apple Quadra, twice in six months. The Last Word, which supplies Apple systems to publishers and print-shops, was burgled six times in a year, with the result that it has now moved its service department to a secret secure base outside London.

Apple Computer takes issue with the suggestion that its computers are any more likely to be stolen than anyone else's, but police sources and computer suppliers confirm that this is indeed the case. One reason is that the individual units are more valuable than comparable IBM-compatible machines. Another is that the graphic and publishing industries, in which the Apple computers are dominant, are more informal in working practices and staffing, making it easier for thieves to gain access.

Detective Superintendent Peter Long of Hampshire police has asked the Association of Chief Police Officers to co- ordinate intelligence on the hardware thieves, whose activities cost industry up to pounds 100m a year, and to work with manufacturers to find ways of improving the identification and security of equipment.

Hampshire's Operation Amulet was set up to look into the theft of computer hardware after the force found that in 1993 alone, pounds 4m-worth of computers had been stolen.

Detective Constable Alex Honeyman says the thieves he has identified have been in their late teens and early twenties. 'They certainly have done their homework. Either they have visited the premises or someone has visited it on their behalf. They'll go to a copy or design centre and pretend to be students at some design college. They'll ask if they can do desk- top publishing, or a full-colour layout from a floppy disk. If not, they'll ask if there's somebody locally who can.'

Once they have found someone with the right equipment, they ask whether the print shop is open at the weekend: if it isn't, it may get a visit from burglars.

Computer thieves keep a close eye on technological developments. Apple's decision to introduce an entirely new line of machines, the Power Macs, with initial restrictions on legitimate supply, can only be good news for the burglary gangs. 'Every time they change the product,' says Det Supt Long, 'it keeps the villains in employment.'