Seventeen people have been charged for a robbery scheme targeting Apple retail stores across California, the state's attorney general announced on Thursday.
Seven people were arrested on Tuesday and booked into Alameda County Jail for alleged involvement in a spate of thefts that resulted in financial loss of more than $1 million, according to a statement released by attorney general Xavier Becerra.
One other individual is being held in Sonoma County, while warrants have been issued for nine more people. Becerra has filed charges in Fresno, Santa Clara and Alameda counties for conspiracy to commit grand theft.
"Organized retail thefts cost California business owners millions and expose them to copycat criminals. Ultimately, consumers pay the cost of this merchandise hijacking," Becerra said in the statement. "We will continue our work with local law enforcement authorities to extinguish this mob mentality and prosecute these criminals to hold them accountable."
The San Luis Obispo and Oakland police departments are leading the continuing investigation, the Sacramento Bee reported.
"The successful collaborative efforts of law enforcement has resulted in dismantling a large criminal ring," said Anne E. Kirkpatrick, Oakland police chief.
The alleged perpetrators entered the stores in groups, wearing hoodies to hide their appearance, Fortune reported.
The robberies took place across 19 counties stretching from San Diego County in the state's south to Butte County in its north, the attorney general's statement said.
San Francisco–based television station KGO-TV reported that the thefts started on May 16, when robbers plundered an Apple Store in Carlsbad.
"In a July theft in Costa Mesa, surveillance video from South Coast Plaza shows that some of the men appear to struggle with a man, who was an off-duty police officer, standing near the store as customers run from the area," the Los Angeles Times reported.
An Apple Store theft took place on Tuesday in Emeryville, when a group of people "swarmed" a retailer and took an unknown quantity of items, according to NBC Bay Area.
Apple Stores in California already had suffered hefty financial losses from robberies.
In 2017, thieves took 17 iPhones, three iPads and two computers—products worth $24,000—from a store in Corte Madera, according to Fortune.
A spate of robberies at the end of 2016 led retailers to increase security, CBS San Francisco reported. In the 2016 thefts, men in hoods rushed into stores, grabbed what they could and escaped.
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