Woman steals iPhone 14 Plus by biting off store's anti-theft cord

A woman was able to upgrade her handset to one of the latest iPhone models without paying for anything—until police officers arrested her for stealing the phone by biting off the store's anti-theft cord attached to it.

According to a report by The Straits Times, a Chinese woman, whose surname is Qiu, stole an iPhone 14 Plus by biting off its anti-theft cord because she thought that buying a new one was too expensive. 

As seen on the surveillance video, Qiu was seen casually trying out the display phone inside the shop while subtly looking around the store. At first, she tried to detach the phone from its anti-theft cord by pulling it off with her hands. 

Since the attempt was unsuccessful, she tried it once again but this time, using her bare teeth by gnawing the anti-theft cord. After finally severing the cord, she immediately pocketed the iPhone 14 Plus worth 7,000 yuan (over P50,000) and casually walked off the store. 

The store’s security alarm system actually went off, but the staff thought it was just an error and decided to turn it off. The crime was only reported after another employee noticed the missing phone on the display stand. 

Qiu was located after 30 minutes and immediately detained. When asked by the local authorities why she committed the crime, she said that she recently lost her phone and thought it was too expensive to buy a new one, so she decided to steal instead. 

She is now set to spend three years in prison and pay a fine of 200,000 yuan (over P1.5 million).