According to a New York Post report, 3,600 units of Apple's new iPad Mini tablet have been stolen from the cargo storage area of New York's John F. Kennedy (JKF) International Airport. The total value of the stolen devices was approximately $1.5 million.

Going by the details shared by the police authorities with the newspaper, it was on Monday night that two thieves somehow managed to get access to the cargo storage building, and - using an airport forklift - loaded a big truck with two iPad Mini pallets comprising nearly 3,600 tablet devices.

As per the New York Post report, three more pallets of the iPad Mini tablets were left behind on the airport's tarmac because the thieves apparently ran away when an airport worker came back after a dinner break. The police are suspecting that some `insider' was probably involved in the theft.

With Apple having earlier announced that it will begin shipping out the first lot of its LTE iPad Mini tablets this week, it is believed that the iPad Minis which were stolen from JFK airport had just arrived from China and were to be distributed around the US.

Since it is quite possible that the stolen pallets of iPad Mini tablets were part of the announced LTE iPad Mini rollout, Apple will likely avoid any kind of disappointment to its 3,600 eager fans by redirecting the iPad Mini stock which was supposed to hit the store shelves!