ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A pair of would-be robbers came fully armed with handcuffs, guns and masks, all for a million-dollar iPad heist.
Orange County investigators say an alert deputy stopped the two robbers before they could storm in and take over the store.
The new Apple iPad was set to go on sale at the Best Buy store near Florida Mall on Friday, but the pair had different plans.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office said this was as inside job -- a current employee and a former employee. Investigators said the pair planned a violent plot to steal more than 2,000 of the new iPads, but an alert deputy caught on before they even made it into the store.
Orange County deputies said 24-year-old Jasmin Roman and 26-year-old Juan Ortiz-Valez planned the million-dollar-plus robbery and heist targeting iPads and other Apple products.
But the plot was foiled when Sgt. Robbie Zeller, working off-duty security, hired by Best Buy, spotted a suspicious U-Haul truck. She called for backup.
"I got to the back of Best Buy. The van was sitting in the middle of Morning Drive with its brake lights on … very suspicious," Zeller said.
Inside the van, deputies found guns, chains, handcuffs and masks. Investigators said the pair wore black clothing that they had bought the previous night.
"They watched too many movies. To come out and see this this morning was a like a practical joke or April Fools," Detective Geoff Fahringer said.
But investigators don't think their motives were a joke. Roman, the alleged mastermind, was a current employee. Ortiz-Valez had recently been fired, the Sheriff's Office said.
Investigators said they planned to hold a manager at gunpoint first thing in the morning, tie employees up and steal $1.3 million worth of the Apple merchandise.
Investigators said the suspects confessed to the entire plot.
"If not for Sgt. Zeller, I guarantee you somebody would've been held at gunpoint and we would have had a significant theft," Fahringer said.
Neither suspect has a criminal history. Investigators don't know how they planned to unload the merchandise after the thefts.
As for Zeller, she told WFTV after the news conference at the sheriff's office that this was the first off-duty detail she had worked in five years.
WFTV
