APPLE
PICKING
furbished and resold, mostly
back to the U.S. wireless carriers.
About 20 percent of those phones
were shipped overseas.
Kuder said the company tries
to prevent thieves from receiving
cash for stolen phones by checking IDs and holding phones for 30
days or longer, to give police time
to see if any are stolen. “We have
tried to make ecoATMs the worst
place for thieves to get rid of stolen
phones,” he said in an interview.
But the company does not check
in real-time whether a phone
dropped in an ecoATM has been
stolen. Kuder said that is because
the company does not have access to the stolen phone blacklist
shared between wireless carriers
and law enforcement.
Lanier has assigned a team of
detectives to investigate the extent of the problem in D.C. Police
there recently arrested a man
who deposited 22 stolen phones
in an ecoATM kiosk over a 30day period and was awarded
more than $2,200 in cash.
“It’s easy to blame street criminals,” Lanier said. “But somebody
is creating a market for these
phones in the name of profit.
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