PHOTOS: A Female Burglar Is Targeting Tech Startups And Only Stealing Apple Products
Jiyan Wei/BuildZoomJiyan Wei, a co-founder of a startup called BuildZoom, has created a Tinder profile for a picture of a woman he claims broke into his office and stole a bunch of laptops.
He says that using the popular dating app "seems like the easiest way to get her face in front of a few thousand San Francisco residents". It's likely that hundreds of local people have already seen the image while perusing potential "matches".
The Tinder profile shows a snapshot of footage and comes with the tagline: "I rob offices in SF. $5,000 reward for identifying me." It's the latest move in an ongoing search for an apparently notorious thief who targets startups.
Jiyan Wei/BuildZoomWei alleges that the woman, whom he calls "Lauren," and alleges on Tinder is 28, broke into his office in July. He says she came back later with a male accomplice.
On December 12 Wei posted on his blog that he managed to obtain high-res footage of the suspect. He released reams of CCTV image stills of "Lauren" and intially offered $2,500 for her capture. Wei explains that his Mac was one of the laptops taken. Here's his Mac tracking page noting it has been "locked".
There's footage on both YouTube and Vimeo of a woman in the BuildZoom office. The tech-based company "helps homeowners find reliable contracters" and also assists contractors promote their businesses. It seems the suspect makes a habit of breaking into startups in the Bay Area.
After local news channel ABC7 covered the burglary, another startup got in touch with Wei to tell him about a similar crime. Wei mentions how the woman "is breaking into SF startups with a Doorking /DFS code entry systems" - which is some sort of master key to enter "any office with any system".
ABC7 reports: "You can see a female burglar calmly walk into the office after hours. She gives the space a quick look just to make sure no one is around and then snags a bag from under a desk and starts digging through the office for stuff to snatch". Apparently she only took Apple devices and left PCs.
Wei writes the BuildZoom corporate office was broken into several throughout July, which inspired the team to install a video camera to record the goings on.
Here's another photo of the woman:
Jiyan Wei/BuildZoomAnd here's the YouTube footage in full:
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