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Man Accused Of Stealing More Than 100 Phones At Coachella Festival

Man Accused Of Stealing More Than 100 Phones At Coachella Festival

A bit of a phoney!

Michael Minay

Michael Minay

As thousands of people watched Radiohead, Lady Gaga, and Kendrick Lamar at the weekend, one man had his eyes on something else.

America's biggest music, food and arts festival, held in Indio (130 miles East of Los Angeles), California, rakes in almost $100m (£79m) in revenue. That's 10 fold on where it was 10 years ago, and it has run for 18 years.

It attracts in the region of 125,000 music fans, on two consecutive weekends, spread over 642 acres (which is about half the size of Glastonbury).

Credit: PA

But with many festival-goers singing, screaming and drinking along to their favourite acts, Renaldo De Jesus Henao had a different idea.

The 36-year-old New Yorker swiped more than 100 mobile phones from people but was busted by a very simple app.

With phones disappearing left, right and centre, some distraught party animals used the 'find my iPhone' app which led them straight to Renaldo.

Sergeant Dan Marshall of Indio police said: "A bunch of people activated their 'find my phone' and point saying, 'Hey, it's that guy, my phone, my dot, it's moving with that guy'."

Security grabbed Renaldo and handed him over to police who soon discovered around 100 stolen mobiles in his backpack. Twenty have been reunited with their owners. He was arrested with grand theft and receiving stolen property.

He was released on a $10,000 (nearly £8,000) bail on Monday and will appear before a county judge on 26th May.

According to shouselaw.com, the most he could receive is three years in prison, although it could only be a year depending on the deemed severity.

Credit: PA

Marshall warned against the carelessness of some people at festivals. He said: "We're talking about a lot of people here, and people can get easily distracted when watching another act.

"I mean, with the lasers, the videos, the sounds, there's a lot of stuff going on.

"And if you put one of these new iPhone 7s in the outermost pocket [of a backpack] or in you back pocket, they're sticking like eight inches out and you're bouncing into 100,000 people."

Last year's festival saw a full NWA reunion during Ice Cube's set. Over one weekend he brought out three NWA members, and then a week later was reunited with Dr Dre. And as for Easy-E, his son took to the stage to honour him.

In previous years, legends such as Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Prince, Jay-Z and AC/DC have all headlined at the double-weekender.

Featured Image Credit: Cathedral City Police Department

Topics: America, iPhone, california