Thief breaks into two State Department buildings, steals phones

[Recursion]

Source: Washington Post

The State Department was hit in two separate locations last week by a thief who got away with dozens of cellphones and electronic equipment.

The department acknowledged that one individual is suspected of slipping into two of its buildings — one in Washington and one in Arlington. A suspect was arrested after he allegedly tried to sell the equipment at a restaurant in Virginia, and almost all the stolen devices were retrieved.

The suspect was identified by Arlington police as Joel Enriquez-Bueno, 42, with no known fixed address. He was charged with grand larceny, grand larceny with intent to sell, breaking and entering, and giving a false identity to police. It was not clear whether he had retained an attorney. He was being held without bond in the Arlington County Detention Facility.

It is unclear why someone apparently targeted two different State Department facilities across the river from each other on the same day, suggesting they were not chosen at random. It also is unclear whether it is just a coincidence that the thefts happened during the government shutdown that has furloughed 4 in 10 State Department employees, or whether the thief failed to realize that Diplomatic Security, which is responsible for protecting property as well as lives, is fully staffed despite the shutdown.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/thief-breaks-into-two-state-department-buildings-steals-phones/2019/01/11/5fc1d67c-15e0-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html

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That's my wife's office building. Ugh. For bonus fun, they stole personal phones from employees working without pay in Classified areas (where you have to leave your phone outside the enclosure).

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Must have been one of those South American criminals who snuck across the

undefended border.

[NBachers]

2. I get the impression there's more to this than is indicated in the story.

[Recursion]

4. Do you? I don't.

Just sounds like a pro burglar who knows some buildings are understaffed.

[blueinredohio]

3. That's kind of hard to believe seeing as their government offices

you would think they would have better security.

[Recursion]

5. Not when the staff are furloughed (nt)

[blueinredohio]

16. The article said security was fully staffed despite shutdown.

[Recursion]

17. Security is at the hard line

A full office is hard to steal from without someone noticing. An empty office is much less so, you just have to fake your way past the (unpaid) security guard.

[Honeycombe8]

6. People leave their phones unattended?

I've not seen that. I never leave my phone anywhere, and neither does anyone I know.

If I had to leave it, I'd leave it in a locked drawer. There had been some thefts years ago where I worked. Ever since, I'm careful about things like that. I imagine that up until now, the State Dept has been fairly free of thefts (except for cyberhacks!), so they aren't as careful (or paranoid?) as those who have experienced it at the workplace.

As an aside, I hope he's not an illegal immigrant. That would just add wood to Trump's fire. It's bad enough he has a Spanish name. I can hear the Trumpers now..."See? Those brown people are all criminals. He probably illegally voted, too."

[Recursion]

7. If you go into a classified enclosure you have to

I mean in theory there should be lockers, but in practice there often aren't enough

[Honeycombe8]

9. Oh, I see. Different setup from a normal company.

I didn't mean to be critical, but I was struck at the thought of a lot of people leaving their phones unattended. $5 was stolen out of my desk drawer decades ago. And an item I'd rec'd as a gift at a company party and left under my desk. Ever since then, I was careful to lock up anything personal when I left my office, if I didn't take it w/me.

But we could take purses and phones to company meetings, so it was a different situation.

[orangecrush]

21. Yup

Where I was, no phones, not even pen or paper that could be used to sketch.

[machoneman]

8. Hired by Trump's lawyers or the Republiscum Party to hide various nefarious....

e-mails, texts, calls. Another Watergate style break-in to hide crimes.

Just-you-wait..............................

[Honeycombe8]

10. Would they hire a "brown person" though?

You know how they feel about non-whites.

[machoneman]

11. If he got caught, what better than to throw shade (literally) at....

a Democratic operative, like a brown or black man, eh?

[Honeycombe8]

12. Good thinking. You are clever, machoneman. nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. They have no problem hiring "brown people" on the cheap.

As long as the brown people can be hidden away during a visit by any of the Trumps. We cannot offend the eyeballs of Don or his spawn by exposing them to dark skin. Darker than an orange, anyway.

[B Stieg]

13. tRump is turning the country into a bankrupt casino nt

[Fuzzpope]

14. So, I wonder what they really stole..

This doesn't ring true for me. I mean, I'm sure that the phones were taken, but maybe that is a smoke screen for the real purpose of the break-in..

[Recursion]

19. The simplest explanation is at least plausible

A burglar thought the shutdown was a good time to get some stuff. Apparently daytime office burglaries are more common than people think; we lost a couple of laptops that way last year.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. A few years back, churches in north Arlington were being hit, during

services. While the worshipers were worshiping, the robber was robbing. He helped himself to coats and whatever he could find in the pockets.

[JI7]

18. I can believe it was nothing more than some idiot who thought

they could get away with it becsuse of the govt shut down.

like the ones who are trashing the national parks.