Officials with Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia say no student data was compromised following the theft of thousands of school laptops from a warehouse.
In a school bulletin Monday, the school system said the 35,000 stolen laptops “had been stripped of all data and their hard drives in preparation for their auction.”
Three men — two Fairfax County Public Schools warehouse employees and a truck driver — have been charged in connection with the scheme to remove the laptops from a warehouse in Springfield where they were being stored before auction.
The two warehouse employees — Franque Minor II, 35, of Maryland, and Mario Jones Jr., 21, of Woodbridge, Virginia, — were charged with embezzlement and larceny with the intent to distribute.
The truck driver, 36-year-old Fadi Atiyeh, of Centreville, Virginia, was charged with receiving stolen property and larceny with the intent to distribute.
Detectives conducting surveillance at the warehouse last week said they discovered stolen laptops in Atiyeh’s truck after multiple visits to the warehouse. A search of the computer recycling business Atiyeh worked at turned up additional evidence, police said.
On the day of the arrest, police recovered about 800 laptops, according to a police spokesman.
Overall, police said up to 35,000 laptops worth an estimated $2 million were stolen, dating back to November 2020.
