Thief Preyed on Apple Store Customers, Stealing New Electronics: Police

Jail booking photo of Mariio Otalora courtesy of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

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By City News Service:

A 25-year-old man was behind bars Thursday, suspected of following more than a dozen customers as they drove away from the Apple electronics store in Palm Desert and stealing newly purchased computers from the victims’ vehicles.

Mariio Otalora of Gardena was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail at the Riverside County jail in Indio, on suspicion of burglary and possession of burglary tools, jail records show.

He is scheduled to make an initial court appearance in Indio on Monday.

An investigation was opened June 3 into reports customers were having their Apple products stolen from their cars shortly after driving away from the store in the 73000 block of El Paseo Drive, sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Eller said.

At least 13 such crimes were reported between June and this month, after the victims drove to neighboring towns from the Apple store, the sergeant said.

On Wednesday, deputies responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle near El Paseo Drive and San Luis Rey Avenue, that matched the description of a vehicle investigators believed the suspect had been using.

Deputies pulled over the white 2014 Nissan Altima with tinted windows and dealer plates, arrested Otalora and recovered a new Apple computer that had allegedly been stolen during a vehicle burglary that occurred an hour earlier in La Quinta, Eller said.

Total losses were estimated at $40,000 in stolen property, and an additional $5,000 in vehicle damage, sheriff’s officials said.

Investigators suspect Otalora was working with an accomplice, who remains at large. The outstanding suspect was described as a Hispanic man, 20 to 25 years old, 5-foot-8 tall, weighing 170 pounds, with a slight amount of facial hair.

Anyone with information is asked to call sheriff’s officials at (760) 836-1688 or make an anonymous report to Valley Crime Stoppers at (760) 341-STOP (7867).