Feds arrest five for selling stolen laptops

Police investigate theft of 288 laptops.

Five Australians have been charged for selling 288 laptops that were stolen from Sydney Airport.

According to the Australian Federal Police, the group was part of an international criminal syndicate with operations in Vietnam.

The laptops, worth approximately $600,000, were allegedly stolen from a freight facility at the airport.

Apple and the Vietnamese National Police were also involved in the one-year-long investigation, with the latter tracking some of the stolen property in Vietnam.

Apple did not comment at the time of publication.

Australian police recovered other stolen laptops in Eastgardens, Crows Nest, Carss Park, Redfern, Vaucluse, Edgecliff, Brighton le Sands and Earlwood.

A 28-year-old man from Ramsgate in Sydney’s south was charged with 13 counts of larceny as a clerk, for which the maximum penalty was 10 years imprisonment.

Others, aged between 24 and 51, were accused of receiving stolen property, and unlawfully possessing property, in contravention of Sections 18 and 527C of the NSW Crimes Act 1900.

Four of the arrested, including the Ramsgate man, faced the Waverley Local Court today. A 24-year-old woman was due in the Downing Centre Local Court on 31 May.